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THE OLD 
MEETING HOUSE 

AND 

VACATION PAPERS 



HUMOROUS AND OTHER 



BY 

f} A/T' 



> 



Rev. Af'M.^COLTON 



COLLECTED FOR PUBLICATION BY HIS BROTHER 

Gjy Q^ COLTON 



i^ 



NEW YORK 
WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY 

1S90 



i i 485 



Copyright, 1890, by 
G. Q. COLTON. 







Press of J. J. Little & Co, 
Astor Place, New York. 



INTRODUCTION. 



During his long and active ministry 
of fifty years, my brother — now in his 
eighty-first year — has written quite a 
number of papers, which have been 
pubHshed from time to time in news- 
papers and magazines, and which have 
greatly delighted his relatives and 
friends. 

Some of these papers were prepared 

for special occasions, while others were 

thrown off during summer vacations. 

These latter are full of boyhood life 

and reminiscence. 

3 



4 Introduction. 

Many friends have united in a re- 
quest that these papers — or the best 
of them — be collected and published 
in book form, believing that, as they 
had afforded pleasure to his friends, 
they would give a like pleasure to a 
larger reading public. 

These papers are too valuable to be 
forgotten and lost. They are instinct 
with life and living properties ; bright, 
fresh, breezy, wholesome, like his and 
my own native Green Mountain air. 
Humor has an accepted home-berth in 
all good speech and print. Shake- 
speare tells us of — 

" Mirth and merriment, 
Which bars a thousand harms, and lengthens 
life." 



Introduction. 



And the good Book says : " A merry 
heart doeth good Hke a medicine." We 
have tears enough in our human Hfe at 
its best. Let us have more of sun- 
shine, if we may ; or, if tears, then 
sunHght through them, and that will 
make rainbows. 

In urging upon my brother the pub- 
lication of these papers, I told him that 
one distinguished clergyman, uniting 
in the above request, had said to me 
that many worthy ministers of the 
olden time are remembered to-day 
as much for the fine vein of humor 
running through their writings as 
for anything they have left behind 
them. 

My brother finally gave me the pa- 



hitroduction. 



pers, to do with them as I might think 
best. 

I have selected from the large num- 
ber such as I thought would best please 
the reader. 

The more sedate and sober read- 
ers will, likely, be best pleased with 
"Touches of the Hampshire County- 
Ministers," and " Letter read at the 
One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniver- 
sary of the First Church in Amherst;" 
while those who seek betimes a need- 
ful rest and relish in some "gayer 
hours" and "merry mild," or, per- 
chance — 

" Mirth that wrinkled Care derides, 
And Laughter holding both his sides " — 

will find, maybe, their mood and occa- 



Introduction. 



sion best met in those brisker touches, 
"The Old Meeting-House," "The 
Colton Tribe," " Reminiscences of 
Boyhood Life," and " New and Old." 
In his apology for printing "The 
Pilgrim's Progress " John Bunyan 
wrote : 

" Some said, John, print ; others said, Not so : 
Some said, It might do good; others said, No." 



G. Q. Colton. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction 3 

The Old Meeting-House 1 1 

The Colton Tribe. Longmeadow Paper . . yj 

Things New and Old 58 

Touches of the Hampshire Ministers 79 

The Old Webster's Spelling-Book 103 

Reminiscences of Boyhood Life 126 

Letter Read at the One Hundred and 
Fiftieth Anniversary of the First 
Congregational Church of Amherst, 
Mass 144 

Remarks Made at the One Hundredth 
Anniversary of the Founding of the 
" Hampshire Gazette " 170 

A Leaf or Two from my Notes of Travel 

Forty Years Ago 182 

9 



lo Contents. 

PAGE 

Touches and Recollections of the Ed- 
wards Church 194 

Remarks at the Centennial Celebration 
OF THE Organization of the West- 
HAMPTON Congregational Church 213 

Paper Read before the Congregational 
Club at Greenfield, Mass 226 

Shoals Letter, No. i 248 

Shoals Letter, No. 2 260 

A Sermon on the Power of Habit 270 



THE 

OLD MEETING-HOUSE 



BOYHOOD RECOLLECTIONS 
OF 1812-20. 

What a grand sight it was to our 
young eyes ! With steps hke a chick- 
en's, we rounded the hill three-quarters 
of a mile off, and there, bursting upon 
our sight, was the village, with the 
old meeting-house in the centre. The 
village ! What a wonder that was ! 
More than twenty houses in plain 
sight ! Those village people must be 
great folks. High life, surely, to live 
in a village. The marvel was how 



12 The Old Meeting- House. 

so many folks could contrive to live 
at all so near each other — as many 
as four houses within a quarter of a 
mile ! 

But the great thing was the meet- 
ing-house. That was a sight — to 2ts it 
was. Just look at that steeple, 'way up 
there, seeming as if it would almost 
touch the stars ! It was a huge house 
(so we thought) — " longer than it was 
broad " — and our eyes fairly swam with 
dizziness as we looked up from under 
the eaves. It wasn't painted outside 
nor in. No matter : we hadn't reached 
the conception of that, and so there 
was no drawback to our admiration. 
We hadn't read Mrs. Opie on white- 
lying, nor had we then seen white- 
lead. It was our meeting-house, and 
nothing could surpass it. 



Boyhood Recollections. 13 

And then to go inside ! " And still 
the wonder grew." Pulpit, pews, and 
pillars ; stairs, galleries, walls, ceilings 
— all of them wonderful. Ceiling in 
sight, if you looked up far enough, and 
galleries midway ; pulpit close, stiff, 
angular, straight, orthodox (in the lit- 
eral sense), yet grand because so high. 
It seemed almost perilous for one to 
stand up there so high, and throw 
down words as boys do stones from a 
hill-top. But there was a sublimity 
about it that awed us. And our seat 
by that pillar in the north 'gallery, 
where First Person Singular sat, and 
saw, and wondered — and listened to 
the minister, 'tis said, with ears, eyes, 
and mouth all open ! Better that than 
be sleeping in such a place. 

And then the singers' end of the 



14 The Old Meeting- House. 

gallery. Old Deacon H. and pitch- 
pipe giving off those now venerable 
but almost fabulous antiquities — Ma- 
jesty, Lenox, Exhortation, Greenwich, 
and " Fly swifter round " (we've for- 
gotten the name) — fugues, where one 
party started off alone, and another 
followed on, and then another and an- 
other^ — bass, treble, tenor, counter, in 
most admirable confusion, leaving one 
in doubt how or where they would 
fetch up. And then to look down into 
those pews, lots of them, and lots of 
people in them. No chapel of ease 
this. No fire in winter, except the 
m.any in the foot-stoves. Not one 
cushion in the house. The people 
meant to "endure hardness." Backs 
of pews bolt upright, and high as the 
head — wise precaution, no doubt, and 



Boyhood Recollections. i5 

seemingly with the same intent with 
which, in the case of the literal flock, 
the farmer adds the sixth rail. Good 
landmarks and fences are something. 
Large, square pews, for three times 
four, comfortably. And the seating — 
one-third part facing the minister, 
this and another third facinsf each 
other, and the remaining third facing 
the north or south, while the preacher 
was in the east. Thus all points of the 
compass received due attention. We 
have a dim speck of a recollection that 
it seemed to us a little queer to see 
people (the odd third in the pew) 
looking off on vacancy northward, lis- 
tening to sounds coming from the 
direction of sun-risinof. But we ougfht 
to have considered that faith cometh 
by hearing. This pew arrangement 



1 6 The Old Meeting- House. 

was not without its advantages. Peo- 
ple should be honest in the week, 
to look each other in the face in the 
meeting-house on Sunday. And for 
the other third part, suggesting the 
fear that more than that proportion 
are wont to be looking off mentally on 
things outside. But so uncharitable a 
thought did not trouble us in those 
days. 

'* If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." 

That old meeting-house was never 
used as a chess-board. People were 
not moved about in the house, now to 
this part and now to that. They owned 
and occupied their pews, as they did 
their farms, in perpetuity. A family 
pew was a possession and a fixture. 
There, year after year, sat old Squire 



Boyhood Recollections. \y 

T., and there Captain B. — almost all 
were squires or captains, except the 
uncles. We uncled nearly all in our 
neighborhood — we mean the men. It 
was Uncle Roger, and Uncle Jesse, 
and Uncle Joe — the latter affection- 
ately and well-intended, certainly, but 
seeming, perhaps, to an outsider to be 
a little wanting in proper respect. 

And our minister, Mr. D. " Rever- 
end " had a meaning then. He was a 
godly man ; we thought so then, and 
think so still. Our veneration of him 
went up almost to the degree of awe. 
Never, in passing us in the road (streets 
we hadn't heard of then) did he get 
within five rods of us without finding 
our voices hushed, and our caps doffed. 
Courtly and condescending, grave but 
not austere, " affectionate in look and 



1 8 The Old Meeting-House. 

tender in address," thinking great 
thoughts, and noticing small children, 
and, wherever meeting us, calling us all 
by our names. Small book in his left 
hand, and smaller sermon in the book 
(smaller in square inches), held up be- 
fore him, and read from. Read "coldly 
correct and critically dull ?" Not so at 
all ; but with such varied tones and 
emphasis, such chastened fervor, such 
tremulous energy and earnestness, as 
did not fail to win the ear, inveterate 
sleepy-heads always excepted. Sel- 
dom an open gesture, and never a 
broad sweep of the hand ; but the soul 
of eloquence was there, and came out 
not much helped nor hindered by 
" the bodily exercise which profiteth 
little." 

We may as well confess a foible. 



Boyhood Recollections. 19 

" Three weeks from next Tuesday, and 
then June Training!'' Expectation 
on tiptoe. The days counted, and the 
hours exactly, and no mistake. Stints 
done better than usual. The distance 
grows " small by degrees and beauti- 
fully less." And Sunday afternoon 
before the Tuesday. " There's the 
Captain ! " Sure enough. Captain L. 
He was seldom at church on other 
Sundays. Why on this ? Had we 
been older, we should perhaps have 
almost suspected a lurking vanity, as 
if he came this time not to hear, 
but to be seen. Possibly, to some of 
the knowing ones, it did seem as if 
the real meaning was " Here am I, 
the Captain L.; attention the whole!" 
But we hadn't then got along so far 
into superfluity of naughtiness as to 



20 The Old Meeting-House. 

be troubled much with such hard 
thoughts. Our childish simplicity 
didn't dive below the surface of the 
matter. Not unlikely we were too 
full of the Captain and the training 
(Sunday though it was) to allow of 
our philosophizing or moralizing very 
profoundly. 

And now for the surroundings of 
the old meeting-house, especially the 
" Green " and the trainings on it. 
Training day ! Long morning that 
from four to nine. Lucky we if 
chancing to fall in with a trainer hav- 
ing gun, cartridge-box, knapsack, and 
canteen ! We were somewhat filled 
with his company in that mile or 
more. It seemed three miles to our 
eagerness. Codger in dress and gait 
(not we, but our trainer), but valor- 



Boyhood Recollections. 21 

ous, no doubt ; and bravely did he 
march up to Lieutenant J.'s, and, with 
gun pointing downward at an angle of 
forty-five degrees, give the customary 
salutation in honor of his superior. 
And now please walk in. Pine table, 
stone jugs, glass decanters and tum- 
blers, unless pewter — and enough for 
all, trainer and satellites. And then 
to reach the brow of the hill and lis- 
ten ! Shrill fife with Yankee Doodle, 
and drums with rub-a-de-dub. How 
the ears tingled, and the pulse quick- 
ened, and the steps — our steps — 
bounded on in double-quick time ! 
And there were the companies — two 
foot and one horse — Light Infantry, 
Floodwood, and the Troopers. We 
somehow liked the looks of the troop- 
ers when in motion. But cui bo7iof 



22 The Old Meeting-House. 

Their manoeuvrings were a thing 
past our comprehension. An array 
somewhat imposing — horses, saddles, 
holsters, pistols, bridles, martingales, 
spurs, and such lots of brass ; but 
chiefly the flannel red coats, and huge 
caps of bearskin, where the hair ought 
to grow. But how they could do 
much in real fight, was a puzzle. The 
horses could run away, if fed, and not 
wounded ; and if they carried their 
riders with them, that was something. 
Safety in flight might come to be 
the main chance. The horsemanship 
didn't get its excellence from drilling 
in riding-schools. Those diverse jolt- 
ings and hitchings and losings of stir- 
rup didn't tell of assiduous culture in 
the science and art. The great thing 
seemed to be not to fall off, which in 



Boyhood Recollections. 23 

an unpleasant sense would have been 
" ground and lofty tumbling." The 
horses were not very orderly in their 
movement. Probably they did not 
understand as well as their riders did 
what all this meant, nor whereunto it 
would grow. War horses they cer- 
tainly were not, in mien and mettle. 
They had snuffed more of harrow-dust 
than of villanous saltpetre. But the 
foot companies were a thing more 
comprehensible. Our town could 
boast of the best drumming in the 
whole regiment. We had the drum- 
major — honor enough for one town. 
But in our common soldiery, the rank 
and file, there was nothing remarkably 
good, nothing very orderly, except the 
orderly sergeant. When in line, the 
line was more a zig-zag, like a 



24 The Old Meeting-House. 

Virginia worm-fence. The platoon 
wheeled round, and round it would 
have been, had it not been more a hol- 
low square. It was always a mystery 
to us, that with such music, so much of 
it and so good, the soldiers in march- 
ing did not keep step better. The 
timing was really little short of exe- 
crable, especially in Floodwood. We 
had a notion that a soldier's air and 
movement should show a something 
spruce and prim, should be elate, reso- 
lute, precise, prompt. But our sol- 
diers, many of them, stooped, and lag- 
ged, boggled, and jogged on badly. 
Some of them probably didn't care 
much if it was so, so they might es- 
cape the fine. Certainly, two of them, 
R. C. and J. G., whether in line or 
march, were always full of waggish- 



Boyhood Recollections. 25 

ness and drollery, making wry faces 
and poking fun. It was a great shame. 

The election of officers came, and 
that was a great affair. To see Mr. 
Such-a-One trudge out from the 
ranks, turn and face the company, 
take off his hat, and, with a jerk of the 
head as perilous as it was graceful, 
begin by thanking his " fellow-sol- 
diers " for the honor they had con- 
ferred on him in choosing him to be 
corporal, and end with a promise to 
** serve them to the best of his abil- 
ity." It was a set speech, formal and 
stereotyped, though never seen in 
print. This, in the manner of it, was 
the most starchful thing ever seen in 
Floodwood. 

We remember to have experienced 
a slight feeling of the comical at hear- 



26 The Old Meeting-House. 

ing some of the " orders " which were 
given out. " Eyes right ! " " Eyes left !" 
What could that mean ? And then, 
" Shoulder arms ! " " Order arms ! " 
" Ground arms ! " and " Rest ! " fol- 
lowed by the scattering ding and 
racket. 

But our most vivid recollections 
are the captains — the special attrac- 
tion — how they looked and carried 
themselves in full regalia. How Cap- 
tain E., though tall, was pale-faced, 
round-shouldered, stooped, and lacked 
presence. How Captain T. was straight 
and vertical, even to bending back- 
ward ; was pompous, pert, and jerk- 
tongued, and was nothing but pres- 
ence. How Captain H. was small 
in stature, but made up for this defect 
by a strut so resolute and forceful as 



Boyhood Recollections. 27 

almost lifted him off from the grround. 
How Captain B. had a swaggering 
gait, like a Missourian, and swayed his 
head from side to side, thus showing to 
better advantage " the waving plume." 
How Captain L. was freckle-faced, 
but smart, and attended meeting one 
half-day in the year. The Captain 
T. was notedly a very close man in 
money matters. Stingy, they called 
him. And when the " treat " came, 
and the bottle of nezv rum went round, 
one soldier tasting, cast a significant 
look at another, saying (in whisper) : 
" Not the choicest, but cheap ! " 

Memorable days to us, those train- 
ings, and memorable place that meet- 
ing-house Green. Great days those for 
the taverns and stores. The toddy- 
stick went faster than the pump-handle. 



28 The Old Meeting-House. 

The town pump was mainly supple- 
mental, to put out the fires. Old and 
young drank alike ; many to mellow- 
ness, some to fuddleness, some few to 
the ditch, and all (nearly) to shame. 
Sad results to that people — wrecks and 
ruins, and many a drunkard's grave. 
May the fifth generation from that be 
so happy as to find, if possible, its 
blood run clear of the hereditary taint 
of rum and gin ! The trainings have 
gone by, and with them (^par nobile 
fratrum) the taverns and tipplings 
— mostly. Go they may, and be 
choked in the sea. We shall shed 
no tears over that part of the matter. 
In those early days the old Green 
was under two regencies, both of them 
arrogant and despotic : the trainers- 
having dominion two days of the year, 



Boyhood Recollections. ic^ 

and the geese the rest. Now \}i\^ geese 
are monarchs of the entire sweep. 
Both companies bipeds ; both with 
regimentals, the latter having their 
own feathers, and the plain, plebeian 
shingle yoke ; both warlike in aspect, 
and ready upon occasion to show 
fight ; both with marchings and strut- 
tings and music of their own ; and 
both somewhat addicted to the pool. 
Which of these two classes of bipeds 
were most needful to the public weal, 
or have done most to save the country 
from war, is a question for a debating 
club. The War of 1812 was then 
over ; and certain it is not one of 
those " fellow-soldiers " has ever seen 
Florida, or Mexico, or Kansas, or 
Utah. Perhaps the House of Repre- 
sentatives in Washington have struck 



30 The Old Meeting-House. 

for consolidation, and intend to mo- 
nopolize the country's fightings, doing 
the whole themselves, representatively 
and sufficiently. 

We should like, before takine off 
these yarns from the reel, to say a 
word about some of the men who in 
that olden time figured prominently in 
that place. One only will we name — 
Squire Blodget. Square Blodget was 
the title he went by. He was decid- 
edly a character — almost an institution. 
Coarse and gruff, inside and out ; pas- 
sionate, pugnacious, and nettlesome ; 
vexing himself with his own prickles, 
like a hedge-hog rolled up the wrong 
way ; bushy head, thick lips, pug nose, 
small eyes ; wrinkled, vinegar-faced, 
short-bodied, and, like the razor-seller, 
"with voice most musical, and not un- 



Boyhood Recollections. 31 

like an Indian yell." We have never 
since been able to read or think of 
old Diogenes, the cynic and snarling, 
without coupling (mentally) the re- 
nowned original and the unworthy 
copy together — though the tub part 
would never have answered for Squire 
Blodget, so restless was he, and in 
such perpetual motion. We supposed 
he must have slept, as other men do ; 
for such wear and tear must have de- 
manded rest, at least semi-occasionally. 
He was (to speak within bound) aboiU 
the crossest, crookedest, crabbedest 
stick we ever set eyes on. He had a" 
sort of ubiquity for all gatherings, 
large or small. Whoever else was not 
there, Squire Blodget was. He had 
one standing topic of talk, was famil- 
iar with it, and he never tired of it. 



32 The Old Meeting-House. 

In all times and places he was ever- 
lastingly sputtering about "Jefferson 
and democracy." Sometimes he came 
to meeting of a Sunday, though sel- 
dom. But when he did come, it was 
to have, if possible, a talk with some- 
body about Jefferson and democracy. 
It was so much gained if, using all dili- 
gence, he got there in the morning ; 
for that would give him the whole 
noon-time, at the tavern across the 
way, to talk against the forenoon ser- 
mon, 2SvAfor Jefferson and democracy. 
The sermon was used for an exordium, 
but it somehow opened out straight 
and quick into Jefferson and democ- 
racy. The versatility seemed marvel- 
ous ; but he had it, and it was equal 
to all exigencies. But June training 
was a long day, and then he had full 



Boyhood Recollections. 33 

swincr, and was autocrat and inexor- 
able. There was no escaping him. 
Whatever knot of men or boys might 
have gathered at the corner of the 
meeting-house, and might be talking 
quietly and cozily of common mat- 
ters, in would come old Squire Blodget 
to have his say, and all the say, and 
always about Jefferson and democracy. 
The mustard-pot fell into the milk-pan. 
He was great for any discussion hav- 
ing only one side, and that his. He 
was " First Disputant " and " Senior 
Wrangrler " in one. 

Do not think, reader, that our Squire 
Blodget was the worst man extant. 
Not so. He had good qualities. He 
was frank-hearted and out-spoken. 
What he was at all, he was openly. 

He was himself, neither less nor more, 

3 



34 The Old Meeting-House. 

and not somebody else in disguise. 
Politician he was, but without the 
artifice and snakiness. You knew 
just where to find him — hiTn himself, 
the genuine article, most unmistakably 
the real and redoubtable old Squire 
Blodgret. 

The old meeting-house has a se- 
quel — a painful part, and a pleasant. 
When the warlike demonstrations 
arou7td it began to pass away, then 
came " fightings within." Two oppos- 
ing sects claimed the house, and con- 
tended vehemently for the possession 
and use. Long and bitter was the 
feud. " From words they almost came 
to blows." But they became sick of 
the strife. The business didn't pay, as 
it never does. The parties, agreeing 
to differ, at lenoth left off the conten- 



Boyhood Recollections, 35 

tion, and Ifeft the house, and built 
anew, each for itself. Then (some 
years later) the town, all parties unit- 
ing, voted, with most commendable 
public spirit, to repair the house, paint 
it handsomely, new shingle it, and let 
it stand, and tell their children's chil- 
dren of what their fathers were and 
did. And there " the old zvhite meet, 
ing-house " docs stand to-day : me- 
mento, silent, yet expressive, eloquent* 
instructive — one of the costliest, grand- 
est, goodliest structures of the Green 
Mountain State. 

We now and then go back to revisit 
the scene. We love to tread that 
same old Green in some calm hour 
toward sunset of a summer's day. We 
wish to go there alone, that we may 
the better indulge in musings and 



36 The Old Meeting- House. 

memories of other days'. We go 
around the house, now looking up to 
the eaves, now leaning against the 
brown-stone corner, and now seat- 
ing ourselves on the steps in front. 
Home! our town and our meeting- 
house — place where we v/ere born, 
and, we hope, were born again. Not 
another spot on earth so sets us to 
thinking. Loved scene to us, and — 

" Meditation here 
May think down hours to moments." 

" Here much I meditate, as m.uch I may. 
With other views of men and manners now 
Than once, and others of a Hfe to come." 



THE COLTON TRIBE. 

AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT THE LONGMEADOW CENTENNIAL, 
October 17, 1883. 



Mr, President and Good Friends : 

In our present quest we do not 
propose to go back to Adam, nor to 
Noah. We stop this side of the Flood 
and of the Red Sea. We begin at 
Moses — our Moses, my Moses, Mr. 
President — otherwise named Quarter- 
master George Colton. Let alone 
Egypt. Let alone England, except 
just to say that the said George afore- 
said came over from Sussex, a south- 
east county in the Fatherland, about 
the middle of the seventeenth cen- 



38 The Co It on Tribe. 

tury. No matter for anything beyond. 
Enough, and good enough, this side. 
No great concern whether the first 
man ever named Colton was Norman, 
Swede, Celt, or Turk. Don't propose 
to go into fits over the question 
whether the Coltons across the brine 
were of princely blood or plebeian. 
That is no great shakes anyway. The 
real point is, What are we, and what 
do we ? All else is fustian and pru- 
nella. We make personal confession, 
that for groping one's way by light of 
a tallow candle through " endless gen- 
ealogies " we have, in this short life, 
no time, tact, nor taste. Had indeed 
a little rather not have come up (or 
down) from ape, tadpole, or clam, as 
the evolutionists would have it. 

Quartermaster George Colton — on 



The Co It 071 Tribe. 39 

him we plant ourselves, and shake 
fists at all questioners and comers. 
We have in him an honorable and 
auspicious beginning. He is found a 
magistrate in Springfield at almost its 
earliest, and before Longmeadow is 
even a precinct, or is more than a pas- 
ture for flocks. Came among the first, 
if not the first, to what is now this 
goodly place and name. Was a wise 
master-builder, and laid here sfood 
foundations, whereof we this day are 
witnesses. Had nine children, and 
that was auspicious prophecy. And 
famous children they were — altogether 
redoubtable. Isaac, Ephraim, Mary, 
Thomas, Sarah, Deborah, Hephzibah, 
John, and Benjamin. There ! Scrip- 
tural, Biblical, every one — patriarch 
and evangelist face to face ; both Tes- 



40 The Colton Tribe. 

taments drawn from, not to say ex- 
hausted ; not a heathen name among 
them. If, from all the hoary regis- 
ters of time, any man can cite the 
equal family record, let him stand up 
and be counted. 

And if Quartermaster George was 
great, a still greater than he, perhaps, 
was his son Thomas, our Joshua, Cap- 
tain Thomas Colton — like John Gil- 
pin, 

" A citizen 

Of credit and renown, ^ 

A train-band captain eke was he." 

He was the hornet against the peo- 
ple who had dwelt in the land. For 
it came to pass when they set them- 
selves to overcome him, he joined bat- 
tle and fought against them ; yea, he 
drave out from before him the Jebu- 



The Colton Tribe, 41 

sites, the Hivites, and the Hittites 
(or subdued them under him), and 
gave their lands for a possession unto 
your fathers, and unto you, as it is this 
day. It was said of him that he could 
scent an Indian from as far as he 
could shoot one — and that was at long 
range. Turning to the old records, I 
find a minute in these words : " Capt. 
Thomas Colton died September 30, 
1728." On the 6th of the following 
October Dr. Williams preached a ser- 
mon in which he gave Captain Colton 
a very extraordinary character, espe- 
cially in the Indian wars, and "as a 
man of eminent piety." Reminds one 
of the centurion, and of Havelock ; a 
soldier, yet fearing God with all his 
house. His monument, in the burial- 
ground near by, a stone slab, large, 



42 The Colt on Tribe. 

strong, durable, of such fine grain and 
texture as to have withstood, without 
fleck or flaw, the storms and sunshines 
of a century and a half, testifies to 
this same high estimate and appreci- 
ation. And then Captain George Col- 
ton, son of Thomas, worthy son of 
worthy sire. Thus we have it — these 
military spangles and splendors — 
Captain, Lieutenant, Ensign, Sergeant, 
etc. And then as to actual service — 
the tug of war. My grandfather 
Aaron, with several others of the 
name, bore a part in the struggle 
for our independence. Sergeant Eb- 
enezer Colton, with his company of 
minute-men, marched from here as far 
as to Brookfield for the rescue of Lex- 
ington, but was countermanded with 
the intelligence that the peril was past. 



The Colton Tribe. 43 

But the Colton name fills a much 
larger space in the civil list and life 
of this grand old town. For a hun- 
dred years one-half, less or more, of 
the moderators of the meetings of 
precinct and town were Coltons. How 
readest thou ? " At a meetinor of the 
inhabitants of the precinct of Long 
Meadow, March i5, i756, Capt. Isaac 
Colton was appointed Moderator ; 
Sergt. George Colton, Ensign ; Simon 
Colton and David Burt were chosen 
Committee, and Samuel Colton, As- 
sessor " — Coltons four to one. One 
more instance out of many in the 
record. At the first meeting of Long- 
meadow as a town, Festus Colton 
was chosen Surveyor of Highways, 
and Luther Colton, Fence Viewer. 
So were the powers and prerogatives, 



44 The Colton Tribe. 

the honors and emoluments of high 
official station heaped upon the Col- 
tons as the most capable and worthy 
among the people ! 

If now any one shall, In malicious 
and mischievous depreciation, insinu- 
ate that the Coltons were all the peo- 
ple, and had the honors of office as 
the college boy did the valedictory, 
being himself the whole class, we shall 
not stop to answer that despiser of 
dignities, except by the silence that 
means disdain. 

And then, coming down, or rather 
up, to the queenly matron, ever vener- 
able and fair — this church. Of the 
sixteen persons joining to organize 
this church one hundred and sixty- 
seven years ago, six were Coltons — 
four women and two men. 



The Colton Tribe. 45 

I have just now alluded to numbers. 
If you carp at the Colton quality, we 
can easily balance the account by 
quantity. Those early family records 
— quivers full. We have looked at 
them, and have sat astonished one 
hour. Quartermaster George is found 
to have had nine children ; Thomas, fif- 
teen ; Ephraim, of the second genera- 
tion, seventeen ; Benjamin, of the third 
generation, fifteen ; and Benjamin, of 
the fourth generation, ten. Prophets 
and prognosticators of omen good or 
ill ! Census bureau and the mul- 
tiplication table ! But take comfort. 
This is a great country, with terri- 
torial domain sufficient for a good 
many Coltons and some few others 
— a remnant at least. Glad to have 
it so ; for we seem to hear voices 



46 The Colton Tribe. 

saying, Give us room, that we may 
dwell. 

Well, then, the just claim of the 
Coltons to precedence and preemi- 
nence before all the other Longmead- 
owers, here and elsewhere : i. We 
were first in the field, and possession 
is nine points of the law. 2. We are 
fullest in numbers — are the majority — 
are the people — not to insist that wis- 
dom will die with us. 

And then as to the parts the Col- 
tons have played and are playing in 
the field of the world. True, we can- 
not point to a Colton as chief execu- 
tive of the nation, nor of this Com- 
monwealth. No matter. The sfreed 
and scramble for ofifice, as now seen, 
would only soil our ermine. But we 
stand well on the roll. One or two 



The Co It on Tribe, 47 

governors or alcaldes, one or two pres- 
idents of colleges, several college pro- 
fessors, educators not a few, physicians 
many, clergymen a goodly number, 
judges rare, lawyers a sufficient and 
satisfying scarcity. 

But, after all, our grand distinction 
and boast is of our deacons. Deacon 
CoLTON. Here, on this eminence, we 
plant ourselves, and boldly challenge 
all competition and comparison. We 
are owners of the deaconship here and 
elsewhere, 

" From the centre all round to the sea." 

We are born deacons, as princes are 
dukes — to the manor born. Deacon 
is our escutcheon heraldic, our ensign 
armorial. True, indeed, in this demo- 
cratic, leveling age and country, where 



48 The Colton Tribe. 

men have such petty jealousies and 
prejudices against ofifice-bearing and 
authority, it may perhaps be as well, 
for the sake of peace and good-will, to 
allow the people the privilege of a 
voice and vote in putting Coltons into 
this as into other offices. But a Colton 
is a deacon any way, and every time, 
vote or no vote. He is deacon by 
very virtue of his being a Colton. To 
say of a Colton that he is a deacon is 
only to pronounce him a little more a 
Colton — an Hebrew of the Hebrews. 
In fact, we don't need the title ; we 
are deacons without it, all the same. 
To think of distinguishing one Colton 
from another Colton by saying that 
one of them is a deacon, would be 
about as lucid an identification as to 
say of one John Smith that he is 



The Colton Tribe. 49 

brother of James. Not to count from 
other branches of our genealogical tree, 
but only from my own especial bough 
or twig, I once found here thirteen 
deacons living contemporaneously, and 
a blessing to their time. My grand- 
father Aaron was deacon ; two or 
three uncles of mine were deacons ; a 
half-score of cousins were deacons ; my 
father was deacon ; three brothers of 
mine were deacons ; and a son of mine 
is deacon. Presumably this branch is 
no exceptional one, but is a fair sam- 
ple of the entire ancestral tree. 

I have not claimed, may it please 
you, that all the good deacons in the 
world are Coltons, I am too modest 
for that. I magnanimously and cheer- 
fully concede that there are good peo- 
ple, some few at least, outside of the 



5o The Colton Tribe. 

Colton fold. I benevolently wish 
there were more of them. And here, 
while I am in this charitable and 
hopeful mood, and before I lose it, I 
may just add and admit that, since an 
humble self-estimate is a grace becom- 
ing in all, even in the best, it is con- 
ceivable that we Coltons, all of us, 
might not do amiss to wish ourselves 
a little better than we are. There is 
always room at the top. 

And then, as to issues and re- 
sults of intermarriages and interfu- 
sions, cross-currents and comminglings 
of blood and quality — ours, with the 
other tribes, the Elys, Cooleys, Blisses, 
Morses, Morrisses, Keeps, Chapins, 
Burts, Williamises, Bridgmans, Kings- 
leys, Goldthwaites, Storrses, Wrights, 
Lawtons, Brockways, and I know not 



The Coltoii Tribe. 5i 

how many more ; whether in all this 
the Coltons have gained most, or 
given most of whatsoever things are 
lovely and of good report, may prop- 
erly be left to any man's conjecturing. 
It is presumable, however, that our 
debtors they are. 

From this account it is very plain, 
first, that the Coltons are a modest 
race, thinking others better than them- 
selves ; and, second, that there are 
amongr them no humorists. How 
could there be ? Being deacons all of 
us, we are too sedate and solemn to 
relax into mirthfulness and levity. 
" Sober as a deacon !" 

But I must draw to a close. 

An Average Colton. 
A plain man, of medium stature ; 



52 The Colt on Tribe. 

rather spare in flesh ; hair brown, and 
scant as age advances ; small eyes ; 
prominent nose and chin, denoting 
push and persistence ; complexion red, 
white, and blue ; circulation and tem- 
perament a trifle slow ; not the quick- 
est in catching an idea, but good 
at keeping it ; modest, as we have 
already said and sung, yet somewhat 
self-opinionated and set — not to say 
stubborn ; second or third cousin, 
maybe, to the Mr. Will-be- Wills ; of 
cheerful turn, and not addicted to 
long face and low murmurs ; laughs 
moderately, but laughs ; prefers to live 
in the south side of the house ; is 
sociable and neighborly ; likes to do 
obliging things, and does them ; 
thinks comfortably well of himself, 
and likes to have others think the 



The Co It 071 Tribe. 53 

same of him ; is affectionate in dispo- 
sition ; loves his kindred and friends, 
and is given to hospitality ; loves a 
good story, and is apt to be a little 
prolix and tiresome in telling it ; 
is pretty sure to be found a singer, 
and no marvel if a chorister ; is 
neither a sun to blind your eyes, nor a 
comet to be gazed at wonderingly ; 
wouldn't excel in metaphorical pyro- 
technics and gymnastics ; is not given 
to minding high things, but is reason- 
ably content to pursue a quiet and 
even tenor ; is patient of toil, working 
with his own hands that which is 
good ; is fair-minded and fair-handed 
in business dealings ; has half an eye 
open for the main chance, but doesn't 
clutch frantically for the everlasting 
more ; is neither a millionaire nor a 



54 The Colton Tribe. 

pauper ; is not crowned king, nor 
hanged a culprit ; is seldom found in 
a palace, and more rarely in a prison ; 
is a Democratic Republican in poli- 
tics ; is found among a gentler com- 
monalty, the middling interest, the 
middle extreme in society — the upper 
middle, if you please ; is not a saint 
by natural birth and blood (no man 
is), but is blessed with such make 
and molding, such natural disposition, 
aptitudes, tendencies, as fits one (if 
there be such fitting in any) to receive 
God's free grace, and be molded by 
it to diviner patterns, even the spiritual 
and heavenly. 

On the whole, a fair sort of a man, 
this average Colton, found respectable, 
faithful, useful; serving God and doing 
good to men, and as likely as most to 



The Colton Tribe. 55 

be saved finally by grace divine and 
grace alone. 

We should not boast, and we need 
not blush, manward, over what the 
Colton race and name have been and 
done here in this dear old home, our 
Jerusalem, Longmeadow, name ever 
dear, and mother of us all ; and have 
done also in the 

" Land of our fathers, wheresoe'er we roam." 

And may I add one word in the 
name of all the tribes and families rep- 
resented here to-day? To the Long- 
meadovv/' residents, people and their 
honored pastor, having here and now 
their beautiful home and habitation, 
we tender, on this memorial anniver- 
sary, our hearty greetings and gratula- 
tions. All hail and farewell ! our dear 



56 The Colt on Tribe. 

old Longmeadow, venerable with age, 
and crowned with beauty ! Her chil- 
dren rise up and call her blessed. May 
other generations of men and women, 
the good and gentle, the true and 
brave for the right, rise up here to 
bless the ancestral home, the nation, 
the world. Our ancestors here : we 
seem to see their venerable forms. 
We tread reverently by the graves 
where they lie in glory, every one in 
his own house. We sit, to-day, be- 
neath the roof, and Mdthin the walls, 
where they worshiped the ever-living 
and loving God, theirs and ours. We 
v/alk beneath the- elms that to them 
were a shadow from the heat. We 
tread on hallowed ground. 

" A charm from the skies seems to hallow us 
here." 



The Colton Tribe, Sj 

We feel here an inspiration and up- 
lifting to good endeavor to do well 
our part, and so be followers of them 
who through faith and patience inherit 
the promises, 

" Our boast is not that we deduce our birth 
From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth ; 
But higher far our proud pretensions rise, " 
The sons of parents passed into the skies." 



"BRINGETH FORTH OUT OF HIS 
TREASURES THINGS NEW AND 
OLD." 

One who has passed into the off- 
side half of his eightieth year, if he 
has had eyes, and has used them, must 
have seen some things, and some 
more. 1809-1889^ — the sweep of the 
century, and such a century ! Likely 
enough he will be found thinking 
and speaking of things that used to 
be, and so contrasting those of once 
with those of now. And no marvel 
if, pondering over the changes he 
has seen, and been a part of, there 
come over him now and then an 
inkling of doubt, whether he be him- 
self or somebody else. " The times 



Things New and Old. 59 

have changed, and we've changed in 
them." 

As to size of families : From 
quivers full in the hands of the 
mighty, to arrows few in the hands of 
the weak. From hearing the last gun 
in the War of 181 2, under the admin- 
istration of James Madison, to voting 
for Benjamin Harrison, in 1888. 
From childhood to old age, and re- 
turn : now Jamie, shaking his rattle, 
and now grandpa, leaning on his staff. 
From ''playing horse" with boy and 
towstring, to " fears by the way," and 
to finding, or fancying, that " a horse 
is a vain thing for safety." From the 
ninepence silver piece, achieved for 
excellence in spelling, to diverse 
" sheepskins," college and other, 
stowed away somewhere safely, unless 



6o Things New and Old. 

the rats, ambitious of fame, have car- 
ried off the honors. From evenings 
worthily spent at home or in spelHng- 
school, to evenings worthlessly thrown 
away on burnt-cork minstrels and 
comic operas — to say nothing now of 
the nightly haunts and hiding-places 
of bad boys, waxing worse and worse. 
From wood-pile to coal-bin. From 
tinder-box to friction matches. From 
tallow candle and pine-knots to kero- 
sene and electric lights. From and- 
irons, and back-log, and blazing hearth, 
roasting one side of you, to furnaces, 
warming the whole house. From 
crane, and hooks, and kettle, and 
skillet, fixings and furnishings of the 
open fireplace, to ranges and stoves 
of a dozen patterns, every one of 
which is " better than all the others 



Things New and Old. 6i 

put together, sure as you live." From 
short-cake in spider, crossed off with 
fork, and turned up to the fire, for 
Aunt 'Rusha's visit this whole after- 
noon, to Frenchified bills of fare, 
lading and loading, for clubs, clans, 
and cliques, various, and too many. 
From barreled apple-sauce, hard-frozen 
in attic in winter, to Barr's ice-creams, 
all the year round. From home-living 
and " hamely fare," to Delmonico's. 
From homespun and " hodden-gray 
and a' that," to merinos, superfines, 
and soft clothinor from Great Britain 
and Hail Columbia. From handicraft, 
tax and strain of human muscle, to 
enginery and horse-power by water 
and steam — perhaps by electricity, the 
other motors being too weak and slow. 
From musical scythe and whetstone, 



62 Things Nezv and Old. 

to ding and clatter of mowing-ma- 
chines. From plain and sensible hand- 
rake, to land lobster, or something re- 
sembling it, and named horse-rake, 
with its pranks of kick-up and touch- 
down. From spinning-wheel and dis- 
taff, presided over by grandmother, in 
her might, majesty, and dominion, 
to power-looms and spinning-jennies, 
tended by children who ought to be at 
school. From splitting oven-wood for 
mother, and receiving the promised 
"turn-over" in sumptuous payment 
therefor, to having seen brick ovens 
gone far past into innocuous desue- 
tude. From that nondescript, ineffable 
piece of humanity, a boy of sixteen, 
with swarms of whims and fancies 
playing round his head, to an octoge- 
narian, sobered, solidified, settled into 



Things Nezv ajid Old. 63 

facts and full persuasions, which no 
battering-ram can shake. From mild- 
mannered toot-toot of tin horn, an- 
nouncing to all the world and the rest 
of us the coming in of mail coach once 
a day, to screech and shriek of car 
whistle nearly all the time. From 
neck-breaking, all-night jouncing in 
stagfe coach over the sham and sem- 
blance of highways, to palace and 
sleeping-car on smooth and level iron 
paths. From journeying diligently six 
days from present to native home, to 
compassing the same distance in one 
night — keeping pace the while with 
the growth of Jonah's gourd, and 
sleeping all the way. From adze and 
broad-axe, hewing timbers, ushering in 
an epoch, a half-day house-raising — 
to say nothing of doughnut and demi- 



64 Things Nezv and Old. 

John — to circular saws and scantling, 
beams and posts, that set the winds 
a-snickering, and bid the bibulous, if 
any, stay at home and be dry. From 
training-days and musters — mimicry of 
war, but surely bound to save the 
country — to the country saved in and 
through the actual and terrible strife, 
and that too by minute-men and volun- 
teers. 

From city and country stores selling 
liquors to young and old, with other 
goods reputably, to saloons, a nui- 
sance, execrated, and going into perdi- 
tion. From the monarchy of blood- 
letting and calomel for all aches and 
ailments, to the democracy of the 
"pathies," ministered by wise men, 
and by men otherwise. From the 
small four-page weekly, coming from 



Things New and Old. 65 

far, to the large eight-page dailies, 
brought to your door morning and 
evening, and taxing too heavily your 
time and readincj. From reading- 
London news fifty days old, to read- 
ing at our breakfast-table this morn- 
ing, this morning's doings in Parlia- 
ment in that city. From high pulpits, 
beetling cliffs, to platform level, allow- 
ing preacher a hand-to-hand grapple 
with hearer in the good fight of faith. 
(Sounding-boards had not ventured 
into the high latitudes of us and the 
North Star.) From the high-backed, 
and doored, square pews for hearers, 
facing three of the four winds, to low 
and open slips facing both minister 
and music, and saying to the stranger, 
"Come, and welcome." From shy- 
piping bass viol, if tolerated, to high- 



66 Things New and Old. 

sounding organ, rejoiced in. (Fiddle, 
if introduced, would have raised a cir- 
cus.) From old Mear, Windham, All 
Saints, St. Martins, and Dundee, sub- 
stantial and satisfying melodies, to 
swarming music-books, with tunes, so- 
called, some of which are good, some 
very good, and some altogether lighter 
than vanity. From the grand fore- 
fathers and foremothers, with their 
stanch and vertebrate beliefs and con- 
victions, to — I will not say magpies, 
standing around, and chattering at 
whom and what they neither attain to 
nor comprehend. Let us rather think 
and say with the incomparable Lin- 
coln, "With charity for all, with mal- 
ice toward none." And still, no duty 
binds or bids us shut our eyes and 
ears to the facts In this matter. " For 



Things New and Old. 67 

as concerning this sect, we know that 
everywhere it is spoken against." 

Any amount of misconception and 
misrepresentation. Some are telling 
us that people, clerical and lay, of our 
olden time, were fed on Calvinism 
and catechism, bitter herbs and un- 
leavened bread, and were thereby made 
sour, gloomy, unhappy. The allega- 
tion is fictitious and false. Read, on 
this point, " Sprague's Annals," and 
stand corrected. With them, indeed, 
were the catechism and the Puritan 
theology, which had stood, and still 
stands, the test of time and trial — doc- 
trines, not the travesty and caricature 
of them, quite too often charged to 
their account. And men didn't die of 
the catechism. The writer of these 
lines was instructed in that old symbol, 



68 Things New and Old. 

and, marvel to say, is alive still, not- 
withstanding. The people of West- 
hampton are said to have been 
" brought up on the catechism." 
Thank you. I wish there were more 
Westhamptons — the clear heads and 
bright hearts, the Bible-reading, the 
Sabbath-keeping, the society and so- 
cial life, the intelligence and thrift, 
and whatsoever things are honest, and 
true, and of good report. It is in no 
spirit of bitterness that a passing refer- 
ence is here made to two or three 
things, the heaviest and hardest, still 
charored against the beliefs of the evan- 
gelical orthodox in time past and pres- 
ent ; men of the present punished for 
Adam's sin ; glorified saints in ecsta- 
sies over the suffering of the lost ; 
willingness to be a castaway a prime 



Tliiiigs New and Old. 69 

evidence of piety; "hell paved with" 
— but I stay my hand. Now, as to 
these things so persistently pressed 
against the memory of those whom we 
should revere : If one who was there 
and is here, one who sat for years un- 
der the teachings of Leonard Woods, 
Moses Stuart, and Edwards A. Park, of 
Andover ; one who heard the preach- 
ing of Revs. Nettleton, Finney, and 
Burchard ; and has listened to thirty 
and more of our college presidents, to 
perhaps as many theological profes- 
sors, and to a hundred, less or more, 
of our most noted preachers, masters 
in our Israel, from Beersheba even 
unto Dan, during a long day of our 
short life — if such an one, speaking for 
himself only, of what, in these matters, 
he has or has not seen and heard, may 



7o Things New and Old. 

be allowed to give and leave his per- 
sonal testimony, then this deponent 
saith : that it has never once fallen to 
him to hear, from one of the above- 
named men, one line or syllable in 
inculcation or endorsement of one of 
the hard things referred to above. 
Bible doctrines, may it please your 
honors, not the falsehoods and fictions 
in place of them, or connected with 
them. There shall be here no plea 
for aught that was wrong or weak in 
what the fathers held and taught. 
They were not perfect. None are. 
I am afraid they are but poorly un- 
derstood. A style of piety sedate, 
but not gloomy; a little rugged, but 
kindly ; not so fine and nice, but of 
firm texture and enduring ; not confi- 
dent and assertive, yet intelligent, 



Things New and Old. 71 

rooted In convictions, and ready always 
to render a reason ; a piety built up on 
both Testaments, the Old and the 
New ; a piety to which those grand 
words, Law and Righteousness, meant 
something ; a piety drawing strength 
and sweetness from the One Hundred 
and Nineteenth Psalm, and from John's 
First Epistle ; a piety thankfully testi- 
fying with the Psalmist, " Thy statutes 
have been my songs in the house of 
my pilgrimage." 

Does a voice come, saying, These 
terrible things were held and taught 
in this or that century back of our 
present ? Oh ! sirs, it hadn't occurred 
to us as a thing of practical moment 
to us to go back and give answer for 
all the wronofs of all time. We were 
speaking of the present century and 



72 Things New and Old. 

the men in it ; and all we claim for 
them is that they were good and noble 
for their time and the light given 
them. It is not given to one age to 
have the wisdom of all the as^es. We 
have not all of us lived forever; and 
it is just possible that some of us to- 
day are still a little short of perfection 
absolute. Let us try to be modest. 

Easy enough to sit back in our soft 
chairs, and be self-complacent, and 
wish our fathers had been wiser. Not 
so easy to be ourselves climbing 
"Hills Difficulty." Most of us find 
it about as much as we can do to 
keep ourselves somewhere. If our 
fathers came short, let us out-do them 
in all goodness, and righteousness, 
and truth, if we can. Likely enough 
we can, if we will. Why this interest 



Things Nczv and Old. 73 

so great in the old-time beliefs and 
teachings ? Are we better than the 
fathers? If we are, let us not boast, 
but be thankful. If we are not, let 
us strive for the mastery. Till we 
are, it is hardly a handsome thing in 
us to be throwing stones. If we 
would be better, the law is open, and 
there are deputies. There is always 
room at the top. 

I have spoken of progress in ma- 
terial things. If now one ask : Has 
there been a like progress in religious 
thinsfs ? Have we ofone on with 
equal step from old to new in moral 
and spiritual wisdom and goodness } 
Have we left the fathers lagging and 
late in the greater concerns of man ? 
To questions of this sort our answer 
is, Yes and No ; and each in its sev- 



74 Things New and Old. 

eral respects. No, as to Bible, the 
one Book, and lived upon ; as to the 
law-work and breaking up of the fal- 
low ground in conviction of sin and 
conversion to Christ ; as to Sabbath 
observance and sanctuary attendance; 
as to nurture of the religious affec- 
tions, the inward, spiritual life by medi- 
tation and prayer ; as to keeping the 
home and heart with all diligence ; as 
to reverence for sacred things ; as to 
contentment with slow and honest 
gains ; as to careful avoidance of 
worldly amusements, frivolities, plays, 
and pastimes ; as to consistency, well 
looked to, between our manner of liv- 
ing and our prayer "■ that we may 
hereafter lead a godly, righteous, and 
sober life." In these and the like 
things, No. 



Things New and Old. 75 

And now the Yes: Larger windows 
to let in sunshine ; better under- 
standing and acceptance of the grand 
rule, " In essentials, unity ; in unessen- 
tial, liberty ; in all things, charity ; " a 
happier blending and proportioning of 
law and gospel in preaching, appeal- 
ing not less perhaps to fear of God's 
wrath, but more to his love in Jesus as 
preeminently the constraining motive 
to repentance and holy living ; not 
now a reserve standino; on cold con- 
ventional proprieties, but, instead, a 
warmth and glow of manner, showing 
the preacher affectionately desirous of 
you, and bent on plucking you as a 
brand ; a larger union and fellowship 
among Christians of different names ; 
care and cultivation of those little 
courtesies, civilities, amenities, throw- 



76 Things New and Old. 

ing a charm over the social life ; insti- 
tutions founded and endowed liberally 
for relief of all manner of misfortune 
and want ; the Sisters of Charity going 
everywhere, carrying gifts and heal- 
ing ; brotherhood and sympathy, lend- 
ing solace and succor to fellow-men in 
every clime, on every shore ; grand 
organizations for mission work and 
moral reform ; slavery, so recently our 
curse and reproach, now wiped out, as 
one wipeth a dish, and turneth it up- 
side down ; the wondrous uprising 
against that devouring monster, Intem- 
perance, and all his myriad aids and 
abettors ; uplifting forces all around 
us, intended and adapted to make this 
world brighter, happier, better — a 
paradise regained. 

Yes and No, then. No, as to depth; 



Things New and Old. Jj 

Yes, as to breadth. No, as to stand- 
ing firmly on the feet ; Yes, as to 
reaching out long arms. No, as to 
rich soil prepared ; Yes, as to the 
flowers appearing — the roses of 
Sharon and the lilies of the valley. 
And so we say : On the whole, Yes, 
and with gladsome emphasis. Strange 
if It were not so, with the world's his- 
tory for our instruction, and the world's 
hope for our inspiration ; the night far 
spent ; the day-star rising. 

" AVatchman ! does its beauteous ray 
Aught of joy or hope foretell ? — 
Traveller ! yes ; it brings the day — 
Promised day of Israel." 

The old and past, whatever it was 
made or was, is gone from us. The 
new and now is ours — is open door 



78 Things New and Old. 

and opportunity, the grandest ever 
known. Let us, then, In joyful trust 
and loving loyalty, commit ourselves 
to Him, our gracious Lord, in whom 
are all our springs — 

'< Our high endeavor, and our glad success, 
Our strength to suffer, and our will to serve." 

The age we live in, like the natural 
world around us, is full of wonders. 
Let us be wakeful, observant, reflec- 
tive, reverent, not disobedient unto the 
heavenly vision, ready unto all good 
works. Let us not sleep as do others. 
Let us not be dull of seeing. 

" Earth's crammed with Heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God ; 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes : 
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries." 

Easthampton, March 28, 1889. 



BRIEF TOUCHES CONCERNING SOME 
OF THE MINISTERS OF THE HAMP- 
SHIRE, MASS., ASSOCIATION FIFTY 
YEARS AGO— OR NEARLY. 

Heman Humphrey, D.D., President 
OF Amherst College, 

Was passing his grand climacteric. 
Had parted with his strongest years, 
yet retained not a little of his best 
self. Of medium stature. Slightly 
inclining to stoop. Meek bearing. 
Head carried a little to his left side. 
Eyes toward the ground in walking. 
Of pleasant manners. Of a quiet hu- 
mor. Fatherly, like President Day, of 
Yale : par nobile fratriLin : they two, 
with President Grifhn, of Williams, 
forming a triumvirate — perhaps just 

79 



8o The Hampshire Ministers. 

the style of men for that special time 
and duty. Dead line not yet drawn 
at forty. " I said Days should speak." 
Sound mind. Stronsf common sense. 
An excellent counselor. A sound and 
instructive preacher. Didn't " fire up," 
as do some, though seen at times un- 
der a power of feeling which, but for 
result of conventionality and early 
habit, would likely have come out in 
eloquence impassioned and grand. 
Early training under the old, but wan- 
ing, dispensation and glory of pow- 
dered hair and knee-buckles ; and so, 
dignity, restraint, reserve, repression. 
Break those bands in sunder, beloved, 
and cast away those cords from yo2i. 
*' Please be seated," always his word of 
greeting, on your entering his room. 
Gave me a cordial welcome on my 



The Hampshire Ministers. 8i 

comlnof to Amherst. Was never want- 
ing to me. Was moderator of council, 
and gave the address to the people 
at my ordination. Noble family of 
children. Humphrey — Porter; good 
blood and stock — a genuine nobility. 
May other such arise ! 

Rev. Nathan Perkins, of Second 
Church, Amherst. 
Son of a minister. Dr. Nathan Per- 
kins, of West Hartford, Conn., whom 
I remember to have seen and heard in 
my college days. Stately and vener- 
able form, a little bent. Bland, open 
face, and clean shaven. Skin soft and 
smooth as an infant's. Hair of light 
color, scant, and well combed. Scru- 
pulously neat in person and dress. Of 
pleasant manners. Always cheerful. 



82 The Hampshire Ministers. 

Lived in the south side of the house. 
Never saw a frown or wrinkle on him. 
A fair preacher. Made for me the 
ordaining prayer. Was every way a 
pastor to his flock. Interested him- 
self, and was helpful to them, in all 
their affairs. Was " Father Perkins " 
before he was fifty ; and, when taken 
up suddenly at the age of sixty-two, a 
sorrowing people said : " My father, 
my father, the chariots of Israel, and 
the horsemen thereof." 

If " father " and sixty-two be old, 
what is eighty ? I don't know, and 
you needn't tell me. 

Of Revs. Reid, of Belchertown, 

AND DaNFORTH, of HaDLEY, 

I saw but little. The former, tall 
and of dark complexion, may have 



The Hampshire Ministers. 83 

been of silent and moodish turn. 
Gave charge to pastor. Mr. Dan- 
forth, of heavier mold, physically — 
perhaps not stronger of the two, men- 
tally. Made the introductory prayer. 
Was blessed with a comfortable meas- 
ure of simplicity and unwisdom : be- 
gan to build a house for a settled 
home, and the people began to talk 
about another minister. Charles Lamb 
says, that " a man who has not a drachm 
of folly in his mixture, has pounds of 
much worse matter in his composition." 

Rev. George Cooke, of North 
Amherst. 

My near neighbor and good brother. 
Of notably fine physique. A hand- 
some man. Those locks, pendent from 
his brow, were proud of him, perhaps 



84 The Hampshire Ministers. 

he of them, though he was not given 
to childish vanity. A sterHng mind — 
powers above the common mark. 
Sound judgment. You might " lean 
hard " on the advice he gave you in 
practical affairs. Of wide intelligence 
— well posted in goings-on in church 
and state. A manifoldness and many- 
sidedness. Could have filled well any 
one of a half-dozen of our callings in 
life. Would have made an admirable 
teacher — it was in his blood and tribe. 
Impressed you as one knowing more 
about your business than you did. 
Handy and handsome, wasn't it, to 
have for our minister a man so broad- 
minded, so excellent in counsel in our 
own every-day concerns? Here was 
half his hold on his people. A little 
allowable pride — and don't blame them 



The Ha77ipshire Ministers. 85 

for it. Was wiser and greater for 
others than for himself. Could write 
an admirable essay for Association. 
Did so, once and again. Ser?non writ- 
ing was irksome to him. Said he 
couldn t, till pressed and pushed to it 
for to-morrow's service. I have found 
him at tea-time on a Saturday p.m. 
with preparation of less than half of 
the first sermon of the two. His exe- 
cution was marvelously rapid. When, 
at the late exigent hour, he did take 
his pen, there was work indeed. No 
flutter, no hysteric energy, but a calm 
and sustained bent and concentration 
of strong powers, well in hand. Bet- 
ter, I think, could it have been so with 
him, better for both sermon and self, 
the patient quill-driving through earlier 
and longer hours. We are differently 



86 The Hampshire Ministers. 

made, I know ; but there is a best way 
for "the generality of mankind in gen- 
eral." I never felt reconciled to his 
leaving his people and the ministry, 
when so loved and so strong. I sadly 
missed him from his place. I once 
sought him out at the Custom House 
in Boston. I could not bring myself 
to feel that a clerkship there was the 
place for one of his talents and train- 
ing. I have known but little of his 
movements in these later years. Shad- 
ows fell upon him ; he was afflicted 
very much. He held and filled a place 
of honor — the presidency of a college, 
— for a time, and was variously useful. 
I am afraid his later years had little of 
sunshine. I am hoping and expecting 
to learn that his end was fulness of 
peace and joy. 



The Hampshire Ministers, 87 

Rev. John Mitchell, of the Ed- 
wards Church, in Northampton. 
The Association's umpire on all 
questions of ecclesiastical polity and 
usage. A scholarly man. A thinker. 
A calm man — strength in sitting still. 
Did a thing thoroughly, or let it alone. 
Words few, and directly to the point. 
His contributions of essay or criticism 
always highly valued, and felt to be 
too seldom. You would shrink from 
reading a shallow and slipshod paper 
in his presence. He would kill yow if 
you did — would do it with infinite gen- 
tleness and goodness, but would do 
it — making an end of it and you. 
Didn't laugh, but smiled. Bland, pale 
face, mirroring the whole man. The 
Edwards Church have had o-rand men. 
A highly favored people ; but among 



88 The Hampshire Ministers. 

all their ministers (and I have known 
them all), perhaps by no one better 
than by him have they been nourished 
up in the words of faith and good doc- 
trine. A more vigorous, forceful man- 
ner in the pulpit might have been well, 
but the richness of the matter went 
far to content those with whom the 
substance is more than the sound. 
That pallid face didn't bespeak robust 
health, or possibility of vehemence 
anywhere. The shaking would have 
torn him. 

Rev. Joseph D. Condit, of South 
Hadley. 
Of tall and slender frame ; erect 
and straight, but no strain nor stiff- 
ness. Thin, pale face. Not strong in 
health. Graceful, not gracious, in his 



The Hampshh'e Ministers. 89 

manners. A chastened ease and affa- 
bleness. No hint of the courtly or the 
patronizing. A born gentleman, in 
the best sense of that term. The to 
propon was in every nerve and vein of 
him. A sweet saintliness, a singular 
delicacy and refinement, shrinking 
from touch or sight of anything gross 
or rude. A coarse jest or word would 
have hurt him like a blow. You 
wouldn't speak that word to him. It 
was, "awful goodness," without the 
awfulness. " A bishop blameless ; " 
and, in saying it, you meant singu- 
larity and emphasis. He was human. 
We all are. But most of us are vc7y 
human. Providential indeed — so we 
all said — that one so refined, so pure, 
so saintly, was sent to South Hadley, 
a plastic power there, so helping to 



QO The Hampshire Ministers. 

mold the Mount Holyoke Female 
Seminary from its beginnings to the 
grace and goodness for which we give 
it all praise. 

Rev. Charles Wiley, of First 
Church, Northampton. 

Of medium stature. Of agreeable 
manners, perhaps a little more spruce 
and nice in his ways than most. Did 
and said things aesthetically. Didn't 
thrust his hand toward you at greet- 
ing, but presented it gingerly. Didn't 
say bluntly, " How are you, Billings ?" 
but said blandly, " How do you do, 
sir?" Of fine mind, and well trained 
and stored. Had his elect model of 
style in Robert Hall, and followed 
him — afar off, of course — but as 
closely, perhaps, as is well for the best 



The Hampshire Ministers. 91 

effects. That murmur and musical 
flow, the stately and sustained move- 
ment, and the well-rounded periods — 
not healthful to common mortals. 
High, moreover, and they cannot at- 
tain unto it. Most of us are not 
giants, and Saul's armor is for giants. 
Better for our best fighting, as fight- 
ing is nowadays, better the sling and 
five stones from the brook — stones 
smooth, or not so smooth. But not to 
judge another in a matter of this sort. 
Every man in his own order. Brother 
Wiley was an excellent preacher. 
Ranked higrh as a sermonizer. Was 
laborious in sermon writing. 

Rev. George A. Oviatt, of the 
Brainerd Church, Belchertown. 
Of slight, fragile mould, pliant, yet 



92 The Hampshire Ministers. 

resilient ; one of those tender plants 
that bend under the wind, and lift them- 
selves when the pressure is off. Of 
fair abilities ; and the five talents, put 
to usury, gained other five talents be- 
sides them. Came direct from Yale 
Theological Seminary to Brainerd 
Church as their first pastor. Was 
happy in his relations here, and pros- 
pered in his work. Perhaps never 
great, as some men count greatness, 
but good, all through and always. 
Kind, gentle, tender-hearted, sympa- 
thetic, a Barnabas, masterful and a 
charmer wherever sorrow was. A 
clinging vine that crept up around 
thousands of hearts, and whose ten- 
drils, once fixed, didn't lose their hold. 
Served the Master worthily in six 
churches in turn, until, wearied by his 



The Hampshire Ministers, 93 

toils, not weary of them, the springs 
of life worn out, he passed peacefully, 
not long ago, to his home and rest in 
heaven. 

One especial thing should be told 
for a memorial of this brother. There 
had been bitter strifes in the Old 
First Church in Belchertown. A por- 
tion of the members left, and were or- 
ganized to be a new Congregational 
church, the Brainerd, to which young 
Oviatt was called. Thus tiuo churches, 
of the same order, side by side, after 
and because of such alienation and di- 
vision. Time passes, and the Old 
Church is found dismissinof their own 
pastor, and inviting the Brainerd 
Church to return home, and brine their 
pastor with them, to be the shepherd 
of the reunited flock. 'Twas done ; 



94 The Hmnpshire Ministers, 

and of that flock, so drawn together, 
Brother Oviatt was for years the sole 
pastor, happy in his work, success- 
ful, beloved, cherished. Rare the in- 
stance ; and rare in the brother that 
combination of qualities, wisdom, pru- 
dence, worth, and work, which could 
make the instance possible and actual. 
Vale, vale, Oviatt, my Yale classmate 
and brother beloved. 

Rev. Morris E. White, of South- 
ampton. 

Of massive, solid mold, physically"; 
shoulders as if to bear up an Atlas. 
Could quickly have floored the stout- 
est of us at wrestling. Was an able 
preacher, and for years was greatly 
favored in his work. Mighty shakings 
in Southampton, and rich ingather- 



The Hampshire Ministers. 95 

ings. But by and by a frost touched 
him, a kiUing frost, and nipped his 
root, and then he fell. His beloved 
wife was snatched from him by the fell 
destroyer. Woman of rare beauty 
and loveliness and culture. He found 
her in Andover, the favorite teacher 
in Abbot Female Academy. He had 
the sense and sentiment to know her 
worth. Her removal was to him a 
stunning and bewildering stroke, which 
quite unmanned him. Months after the 
storm broke upon him, calling at my 
house in Amherst, and seeing my wife, 
and told that she was once a pupil of 
his wife, in Andover, he burst into 
tears, and wept for an hour like a 
child. Some here present can recall 
the sad story. A pulpit charge still 
upon him, and a people accustomed to 



96 The Hampshire Ministers. 

look for good preaching ; Sunday will 
come, and the sermons must. Pressed 
as under a mountain weight ; his home 
desolated ; nerves unstrung ; the very- 
air of his study freighted with gloom ; 
sense of utter impotence and impos- 
sibility to so much as think anything 
as of himself ; and now a drop from 
the cup, a convenient extract from 
another's pen, and next time, likely, 
the same, and a little more, just to 
ease the burden this once ; and with no 
thought, or little thought, of the issue 
that will come, and will not tarry. The 
inevitable did come ; the complaint, 
the council, the trial, the dismission, 
the demission from the sacred office. 
Years have since passed. I make no 
plea for the things charged — the cup 
or the quotation. I make no question 



TJie Hmnpshire Ministers. 97 

that the council did wisely and rightly. 
And yet, to-day, in recalling to mind 
the scenes and the man, I think, and 
care to think, of little else but of the 
blow that crushed him to the earth. 
Charity never faileth. Gently, my 
friends, gently toward a reed, not 
shaken only, not bruised only, but 
broken in the midst. 

Rev. Henry Neil, of Hatfield. 

Of about medium stature. Of pe- 
culiar build. Shoulders drawn up 
around his neck as it had been a 
blanket shawl. A great favorite in 
scenes of college life. Captured and 
carried off one of President Humph- 
rey's daughters — a prize indeed. I 
was present at the nuptials. Lively as 
a cricket. Somethinof of the French- 



98 The Hmnpshire Ministers. 

man in looks and ways. Genial and 
jovial among familiars, bubbling up 
and brimming over with good humor. 
A fine mind, and finely furnished. A 
quick and keen discernment. Ready 
of speech. Great in an off-hand criti- 
cism on sermon or essay ; beginning 
and ending Jiis apt remarks, while 
most of us were cfettinof ourselves to- 
eether. An able and instructive 
preacher. Wrought a good work in 
Hatfield, and left us all too soon. 
And now, per contra, 

Rev. Warren H. Beaman, of North 
Hadley. 
Behold the m.an. A patient, plod- 
ding toiler, faithful for the Master, 
with good will doing service, and 
heartily, as unto the Lord. Took 



The Hampshire Ministers. 99 

charge of a small church, and had 
the joy of seeing that his labors were 
not in vain in the Lord. Much to 
discourage him in frequent deaths and 
removals, yet patiently toiling on to 
strengthen the things that remained. 
In all things showing himself a pat- 
tern of good works ; in doctrine, un- 
corruptness, gravity, sincerity, sound 
speech ; an example of the believers 
in word, in conversation, in charity, in 
spirit, in faith, in purity. Preached 
the Word — preached the Gospel ; not 
about the Gospel, nor about the plu- 
mage of birds, and the rings of Saturn, 
and " the thingrness of the this." And 
now, after a well-spent day, still hon- 
ored, and still useful variously, he is, 
as a gracious reward, enjoying a serene 
and tranquil evening, in prospect of 



loo The Hampshire Ministers. 

the blessed to-morrow — the crown, the 
white robes, the everlasting song. And 
we heartily salute him with our Scries 
ill cceluin redeas. 

And now, last, not least, 

Rev. John H. Bisbee, of Worthing- 

TON. 

Our mountain man and minister. 
And the minister whose pendulum of 
journeyings swung patiently between 
Worthington and Chesterfield durinor 
the millennium of twenty-eight years 
— to say nothing now of the far more 
of home and parish travel over hill 
and dale, and 

" On the mountain tops appearing " — 

oueht lonof aero to have received a 
veteran's life pension of a thousand 



The Hampshire Ministers. loi 

pounds a year. Head of a large and 
flourishing church : for, in those early- 
ages, his and mine, our neighbors, 
Japheth and Arphaxad, had no craze 
for gold mines, no craving for a home 
in sight and hearing of rail and 
whistle ; nor were our hill-tops and 
hill-sides made bare of choice trees 
and saplings to feed prairie fires and 
fevers. Grand old town, this Wor- 
thington — Hebron of Hampshire ! and 
well did the shepherd there feed his 
flock, and gather the lambs. And his 
works do follow him. To-day a man 
has no right to be buried or born 
there without Brother Bisbee's leave 
and blessing. Retiring after a toil- 
some day to rest himself a little for 
the longer journey and the better 
land, he has left behind him upon his 



I02 The Hampshire Ministers. 

beloved people his own rare personal- 
ity and impress, to remain there till 
the mountains be removed, and be 
carried into the midst of the sea. 
His footprints still on every rood 
and rod of that domain ; his tears 
still enriching the soil ; his hand still 
carrying bread and balm ; his voice 
and smile of sympathy and glad- 
ness, and the soft memory of his vir- 
tues, lingering yet, 

" While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains 
Repeat the sounding joy." 



THE OLD WEBSTER'S SPELLING- 
■ BOOK. 

This gray goose-quill has already 
scrawled for the Gazette some few 
thines that were, or seemed to be, in 
my Vermont home and life, in my times 
of old : the scenery and scenes ; the 
village green ; the meeting-house, and 
minister and music ; the trainers and 
troopers ; the tavern and tippling ; the 
old school-house, thoroughly warmed 
once, and once for all ; the school- 
ma'am, venerable for antiquity and wis- 
dom — so she seemed ; the pastimes 
and plays — husking, paring, and other 
*' bees ; " the thousand and forty-seven 
fictions and fancies that play round a 
boy's head, both when he sleeps and 



I04 Wcbste7'''s Spelling-Book. 

when he wakes, or, the kinks within it, 
and hard to be straisrhtened out. 

But there is yet one thing more, a 
thing masterful and preeminent, whose 
high praises are specially deserving to 
be said and sung, namely : 

Our Old Webster's Spelling-Book. 
It lies before me, the genuine arti- 
cle : not the identical copy I used and 
was brought up on, long time ago, 
but of the same edition. It looks old, 
as do the rest of us, old people. It is 
nearly as old as I am, and has come 
spelling its way along down through 
two-thirds of a century, to these odd 
times. How long it had lain in the 
Boston Antiquarian bookstore where I 
found it thirty-five years ago, I cannot 
tell. It is an institution — yes, a uni- 



Webster s Spei ling-Book. io5 

versity. It has trained and strained 
more heads than any other book of the 
kind ever did, or perhaps ever will. 
Later editions have been sent out ; but 
give me the old wine, which to my Hk- 
ing is better. Very plain, even homely, 
in outward appearance. Never mind. 
Homely people are generally the best. 
They have to be — making up for the 
homeliness without by the handsome- 
ness within. It Is a blessed necessity. 
The back of the cover is of coarse 
linen cloth — very coarse — threads 
within sight of each other. The sides 
of cover are of layers of brown paper, 
with an over-all of thin, blue paper. 
The paper and pages within look as 
if they might have come from a mill 
using bleached straw and slacked lime, 
with a little sulphur thrown in to give 



io6 Websie7's Spelling-Book. 

the tinting. No evidence of iron- 
board and smoothing-plane. Please 
do not bring here your microscope, 
nor criticise sharply. One excellence 
the paper certainly has : it is tough 
and strong — like the rugged and sturdy 
virtues of people in the olden time — 
which is more and better than can be 
said of much of our modern letter- 
press. 

And now as to the conte7its, the 
meat and marrow. Quite a book in 
size — one hundred and sixty-eight 
pages, and nuts of things in it, all 
through. The Preface we didn't have 
to read. But the next half-dozen 
pages — " Analysis of Sounds " — we, in 
our school, had to commit to memory 
and recite. This amazed us, and does 
still. Just to think of a child eight or 



Webs I e J'' s Spelling- Book. 107 

nine years old required to recite un- 
derstandingly the opening sentence : 
" Laneuaofe, in its more limited sense, 
is the expression of ideas by articulate 
sounds." 

You miofht about as well set that 
child to comprehending those vast 
themes, verities so important, but how 
profound, viz.: The wherefore of the 
why, the thingness of the this, and the 
thusness of the though. Makes one 
think of Horace Greeley, who, after 
reading a grandiloquent communica- 
tion sent to him for the press, said of 
it, that it " obfuscated all his intellects, 
and circumgumfrigobrighisticated all 
his comprehensibilities." 

And come to the A, B, C page. In 
my times of old we children learned 
our A, B, C's at school, and not at 



io8 Webster s Spelling-Book. 

home, from lettered blocks and other 
knick-knacks, as in these latter days. 
Some of those first things at school 
were quite impressive to the looker-on 
and listener. One case we well re- 
member, and a case it was. Stubby 
boy, round-faced and ruddy. Leaned 
up hard against school-ma'am. Began 
low. Teacher said, " A little louder, 
Jamie." And didn't he! " A-yah, 
B-yah, C-yah ; " and with such vehe- 
mence ! No blame if you shall think 
that the ceiling shook, and the air was 
torn, and that the black ants, foraging 
on his dinner in the entry, lifted up 
their heads, startled, and wondering 
whether it was thunder, or only an 
earthquake. It might have been both. 
And see the chap fixing his lips for 
the next explosion. Or perhaps he is 



Webslcrs Spelling-Book. 109 

looking around to see if his splendid 
achievement is duly appreciated. If 
so, up comes the school-ma'am's hand 
— pointing" penknife between fingers 
— and deftly touches the side of his 
head, and swings that head around to 
right front, and to the great business 
in hand — preparing this blossom or 
bud of possibilities for his high voca- 
tion — perhaps of field-driver, or con- 
stable, or corporal, or President of the 
United States — who can tell? 

High day when we advanced to 
Table No. 2 — bag, big, bog. But the 
almost dizzying elevation when we 
ascended and attained to Table No. 4 
— baker, brier, cider, crazy. It is 
very observable, this placing crazy 
next after cider. Here are fact and 
philosophy, cause and effect ; indeed, a 



no Websiers Spelling-Book. 

temperance lecture entire. How those 
tables of spelling lessons, once mas- 
tered, cling to the memory ! The first 
word given you, and your memory 
runs on to the next, and the next : 
much as in a line of bricks set up on 
end, and set a-going. The rough and 
tumble of threescore years and more 
have scarcely dimmed the page. 

Our spelling-book — we mean the 
one we bouo^ht in Boston — has about 
it a look of yellow sorrowfulness; in- 
duced, no doubt, from its frequent 
failures to make good spellers, not- 
withstanding its having done its best ; 
very much as with the moon, her sad 
face, because of the sad sights she has 
been compelled to see with those great 
eyes looking down nightly on this 
mundane sphere. You will be told 



Webster s Spelling-Book. 1 1 1 

that some men, and some maidens, 
too, haven't the capability to become 
good spellers, just as some have no 
ear for music. Some will suggest that 
good spellers, like good poets, are 
born, not made. Waiving this point, 
one thing is certain : the orthograph- 
ical limb of dear old Kin^j's Enorlish 
often gets wofully wrenched, and 
goes lame and limping, and begging 
for crutches. Hard usage indeed, as 
with the man who went down from 
Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among 
thieves, who stripped him of his rai- 
ment, and wounded him, and left him 
half dead. Some letters, spelled as 
you have seen, and, at seeing, have 
been astonied one hour. Sorry for 
postmasters and the postal service. 
Have pity, oh, my friends, on the 



1 1 2 Webster s Spelling-Book. 

printers ; what a time they must have 
of it ! No marvel if those mail-bags 
blush blood red, and do groan, being 
burdened. Is the mail-wagon an am- 
bulance or a hearse for carrying the 
wounded or dead ? And not only in 
such hard usaoj'e does the Kino^'s Enof- 
lish receive wrong ; it infiicts wrong. 
" The letter killeth." We read of 
dead languages. Sometimes in read- 
ing a letter or book you wonder with 
a very sore amazement. A few days 
ago I received from a college graduate 
and writer of books a letter in which 
two words were misspelled. How 
many of your letters give you Febru- 
ary as Febuary ? how many, separate 
as seperate ? And one church member 
complaining of another member in the 
" churtch" 



Webster s Spelling-Book. 1 1 3 

Well, let us spare our censure, and 
say, pity and charity. A great misfor- 
tune, this we speak of — utterly a fault 
in any man, and especially in any per- 
son pretending to be a lady, and 
should be shunned by all manner of 
means. In my ancient times the spell- 
ing lesson was studied, column by 
column, from the spelling-book, and 
spelled by the classes, old and young 
alike, standing on the floor — the scholar 
taking his place, and keeping it if he 
could, the month in and out, without 
having his head cut off every night — a 
rather discouraging operation to an 
aspiring lad or lass. But here we 
come to debatable ground, and will 
call a halt. As to aim and achieve- 
ment in this line — if the personal men- 
tion may be allowed. One winter 



1 14 Webster s Spelling-Book. 

is remembered when boy kept such 
headship all through the term, and 
carried off the great prize, a punched 
and pendant silver ninepence, tow- 
string and all. Perhaps less of sliding 
down hill in those months. Or, with 
your farther indulgence. A noted 
spelling match in a neighboring town. 
Visitors invited to give in their names, 
and take part in the contest. Sides 
chosen. Came out even at 8 p.m. 
Another choosing up. Came out even 
again at 9. " Let us have this out." 
One from each side must go upon 
the floor, and spell for the side. 
Against aforesaid boy was placed 
an older person, Miss H. L., who 
had taught school four summers. 
Plied and pumped with the spelling- 
book fore and aft, and aft and fore. 



Webster s Spelling-Book. 1 1 5 

" The combat deepens." By and by 
the word apropos was put to the fairer 
and gentler, and she spelled it appro- 
pos, putting in one too many p's, and 
boy, getting it right, carried off the 
glitter. But we will not boast of 
thinofs without our measure. 

And what a day that was when we 
stood on the hill-top of human great- 
ness, and grappled with our first read- 
ing-Xos^on ! " No man may put off the 
law of God ; " " My joy is in his law 
all the day." See that boy, in his 
mighty wrestlings to spell out the 
words ! Lips moving vigorously ; 
brow knit, book turned this way and 
that, to give room for the great idea to 
come in ; his whole frame writhing, and 
screwed down hard and tis^ht to the 
supreme task. Perhaps he will " fetch 



1 1 6 Webster s Spelling-Book. 

it," perhaps not ; but will come out of 
the throes as an older boy did from 
the word pictu7^esque — pronouncing it 
picturc-squee. But don't you give that 
small boy up. There is promise for 
him in such an energy and bent as 
that. 

Then a succession of easy and fa- 
miliar lessons ; " The time will come, 
etc.;" "The dog growls and barks, 
etc.;" "William, tell me how many 
mills make a cent, etc. " (Some 
" mills " do not make a cent at all, 
but lose money all the time.) One of 
these commands impressed us special- 
ly, and does still ; " Henry, hold up 
your head, and speak loud and plain." 
Herein is philosophy. All the success 
in General Jackson's administration — 
all that it had — is told in his four 



Webster s Spellmg-Book. 1 1 7 

words: "/ take the responsibility y 
That lad, speaking softly and parting 
his hair in the middle, and carrying 
his head one side, and himself stoop- 
ingly — another dude — has already lost 
half the battle of life. 

Then in our spelling-book those 
beautiful little sonnets ; The Rose, The 
Lamb, The Goldfinch starved in a cage ; 
all admirably adapted to cultivate in a 
child, or man, the finer feelings ; sensi- 
bility, sympathy, gentleness, kindness. 
A boy taking home to his heart those 
four little songlets, would never after- 
ward rob a bird's nest, nor " needlessly 
set foot upon a worm," but, "having 
humanity, forewarned, would step 
aside, and let the reptile live." 

But come to the fables and X\\^ pict- 
ures ! fiere is richness. "Of the 



1 1 8 Webster s Spellmg-Book. 

boy that stole apples." See that old 
man under the tree. Continental coat 
and hat ; that determined attitude ; 
arm drawn back to a fearful tenseness ; 
20-horse power of will in that elbow ; 
hand gripping the stone (grass has 
been given up) which is to make " the 
young sauce-box hasten down from the 
tree, and beg the old man's pardon." 
And the moral appended, " If good 
words and gentle means will not re- 
claim the wicked," etc. Then Fable 
No. 2. — " The country maid and her 
milk-pail." Pail upset, and milk 
spilled, and maid, like Niobe, " voice- 
less in her woe " : 

" Ferlorner 'n a musquash ef you've 
took and dreened the swamp," 

Don't blame her. Many a maid has 
made a worse ado about a smaller 



Websiers Spelling-Book. 119 

mishap than that. And Fable No. 3. 
— " The fox and the swallow." Fox 
with water under him, to drown him, 
flies above him to devour him, and feet 
tangled in weeds — most decidedly a 
predicament, yet declining the swal- 
low's aid, choosing rather to endure 
the present swarm, already half gorged, 
than be assailed by another and hun- 
grier. And Fable 4. — That cat, cov- 
ered with meal, and hanging by her feet 
as if dead, and thus deceiving the rats 
and mice to their undoine. But of all 
these Fables, the 8th and last hits our 
common life oftenest and hardest ; sel- 
fishness and sense of justice getting 
here muddled and mixed up in ludi- 
crous confusion on the question, 
Whether it is your bull that has gored 
my ox, or mine yours ? About once a 



I20 Webster s Spelling-Boo k. 

week through his lifetime is that fable 
brought to recollection by what a man 
sees and passes through in " this poor 
miserable world." 

Putting on the spectacles of my an- 
cientness, I have been looking anew 
through the old spelling-book to see 
how, on the whole, the old friend 
would appear to me now in these lat- 
ter days to which it and I have come 
down. Grandly, sir, is my ready an- 
swer ; never before handsomer than 
now — I mean the book. And so will 
it appear to you, my friend, from the 
glance or the scrutiny, if you be the 
sensible man I take you for. Useful 
lessons on weights, measures, coins, 
seasons, and times ; choice maxims, to 
guide our conduct every day ; obser- 
vations on domestic economy; a finely 



Websiers Spelling-Boo k. 121 

drawn picture of rural and farm life ; 
just as Cowper tells us that God 
made the country, and man the town. 
Admirable collection and grouping 
of things, coin and currency, ready 
unto all good works. You observe 
throughout the book a high moral 
and religious tone and tonic, yes, 
a Biblical and Christian tone and 
teaching. 

Our old spelling-book has its clos- 
ing and coronation in an excellent 
" moral catechism," eight pages, on 
these themes: "Of Humility, Mercy, 
Peace-makers, Purity of Heart, Anger, 
Revenge, Justice, Generosity, Grati- 
tude, Truth, Charity and giving of 
Alms, Avarice, Frugality and Econ- 
omy, Industry and Cheerfulness." 
These, surely, are excellent things to 



122 Websiers Spelling-Boo k. 

be learned in schools and elsewhere. 
And the earlier the better. 

I said Scriptural and Christian. 
Our spelling-book gave us Bible max- 
ims in Bible words. We were not 
frightened in those days by alarm- 
cries of ''church and state." Nobody 
was wise enouo^h to tell us that to save 
the land from utter rottenness and 
putrescence the Bible and prayer must 
be excluded from the public schools. 
We were not taught that to be good 
patriots we must be infidels. We were 
simple enough to believe that to train 
a tree to grace and beauty we must 
begin with its early growth. Our old 
English Reader told us that "Just as 
the twig is bent the tree's inclined;" 
and we had so little sense as to believe 
it. We hadn't attained to the wisdom 



Webster s Spelling-Boo k. 123 

of thinking that the best method in all 
education is to let the devil have the 
making of your children, and leave to 
you the mending of them as best you 
can. We hadn't received the new ver- 
sion — it isn't yet quite ready for the 
press — giving the translation as from 
the Hebrew : Train up a child in the 
way he should not go, and when he is 
old he will come out all right. True, 
there is the Family, which is fons ct 
princeps in all good nurture and cult- 
ure. There are also the sanctuary 
and Sabbath-school ; blessed minis- 
tries. But all these three agree in 
one, and are built up upon one — the 
Word of God. The Pilgrim and Puri- 
tan Fathers, coming to these shores, 
were right early In rearing the school - 
house, and placing the Bible in it, as 



124 Webster s Spelling-Book. 

beyond comparison the best of all 
books. School-house and Bible in it — 
meeting-house, and minister, and town 
meeting; from thence the shepherd, 
the stone of Israel — our New England 
Israel, as it is, or was. If the Bible 
is not in our public schools now, as 
aforetime, it is because it has been put 
out, thrust out. But not to sermonize 
farther now and here. 

The school-house and our old spell- 
ing-book — all hail and farewell ! The 
closing words of the spelling-book 
shall be my closing here : " O. What 
has Christ said concerning gloomy 
Christians ? A. He has pronounced 
them hypocrites ; and commanded his 
followers not to copy their sad coun- 
tenances and disfigured faces ; but 
even in their acts of humiliation to 



Webster s Spelling-Book. 125 

anoint their heads and wash their 
faces. Christ intended by this, that 
religion does not consist in, nor re- 
quire, a monkish sadness and gravity ; 
on the other hand, he intimates that 
appearances of sanctity are generally 
the marks of hypocrisy. He expressly 
enjoins upon his followers marks of 
cheerfulness. Indeed, the only true 
ground of perpetual cheerfulness is a 
consciousness of ever having done 
well, and an assurance of divine favor. 
Finis." 



REMINISCENCES OF BOYHOOD LIFE 
IN VERMONT SIXTY AND MORE 
YEARS AGO. 

No place on earth like your old and 
early home to set you musing and 
mumbling. Wonderful the magic 
spell under which you shake off years 
from your shoulders, and, for a little, 
live your young life over again. 
Everything you see talks to you, 
and you to it. The stone, the stump, 
the stream, the apple-tree that hung 
temptingly over the school-ground 
fence, and laden with forbidden fruit ; 
the spot where the old strutting " gob- 
ble turkey," seeing your red cap, gave 
chase, and came off second best ; the 
spot where, in a nightmare, you saw, 



Reminiscences of Boyhood. 1 2 7 

crossing your path, a huge bear, with 
a long fence-rail in his mouth, and 
glaring at you ; the place of the sheep- 
pen, and the annual washings — giving 
you the shudders, in seeing and pity- 
ing ; the spot by the house-corner 
where, on Sabbath afternoon, Septem- 
ber II, 1 8 14, you sat with brother and 
sister, and heard the cannon-firing in 
the battle of Lake Champlain — prop- 
erly the closing battle in the War of 
18 1 2, so-called; the brook and rocks 
where stood the bark-mill into which, 
a few days later, you ran, and saw 
shiveringly through the cracks in the 
mill and in your eyes those awful, 
horrid men, Britishers, red-coats, pass- 
ing on their way home from Burlington 
to Canada ; the piece of road over 
which you led old Mr. Murray, the 



128 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 

blind man, and for which distinguished 
service he paid you munificently, mak- 
ing over to you and your heirs and 
assigns forever all his right and title 
(five dollars) to the school-house you 
were just then passing. True, the 
house was not palatial in size and 
looks, and was innocent of having so 
much as dreamed of such superfluities 
as paint and stove ; and in no long 
time an incendiary fire made the room 
warmer than it had ever before been. 
Not a vast estate, to be sure ; but it 
was " yourn," and, while it lasted, was 
of as much use to you as many another 
and prouder possession has been to an 
older but not wiser than you. Hap- 
pily, before the conflagration, you had 
gotten from the house the best it could 
give — the first run of sap, so to speak. 



Remmiscenccs of Boyhood. 129 

Those high writing benches, and on 
them the names graven by art and 
man's device, and thus made illustrious 
for all time. But that masterpiece of 
tyranny and torment, those tuidcr- 
benches, narrow and cramped, where, 
bolt upright, and with feet dangling, 
the youngest America sat, or fell off — 
you did both by turns — it would take 
twenty languages to execrate ade- 
quately this part of that school-house's 
conveniences and accommodations. 

And then our "school-ma'am" of 
that ancient time. We go back to an 
almost fabulous antiquity to have one 
more look at her — not that you your- 
self are so old. Miss P. H. We seem 
to see her now — tall, straight, stately, 
slim, spruce, staid, and sedate ; face 
open, placid, bland, like Washington's; 
9 



130 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 

eyes blue ; hair of hue somewhere be- 
tween saffron and sulphur ; of gentle 
and condescending ways ; strict with- 
out sternness in discipline : " You must 
go straight home, and not loiter by the 
way ; must take off caps and make 
your bow to every one passing you on 
the road." Sidewalks were none — 
and roads themselves were rudimental 
and primitive. The custom or act of 
whistling, when passing people in the 
street, or in their presence anywhere 
— mark of the rustic and the boor, 
indicating low breeding and a low 
plane of life — didn't, in that early day, 
set one questioning whether his home 
was among Fiji Islanders, or among a 
people having some idea of good man- 
ners, gentility, decency, decorum. 
But returning to our school-ma'am. 



Remmiscences of Boyhood. 1 3 1 

We have since that early time met 
with teachers many and various — some 
very good, and some indifferently good 
— some wise and some otherwise. But 
this one, our own and primeval, ex- 
celled them all. She was peerless, 
transcendent, ineffable. 

*' And still you gazed, and still the wonder grew, 
That one small head could carry all she knew." 

You go back in fancy to those be- 
ginnings with the good dame, and of 
your own grand march of mind : 

" Propt on the marsh, a dwelling now I see, 
The humble school-house of my A, B, C, 
Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire. 
Waited in ranks the wished command to fire ; 
Then all together, when the signal came, 
Discharged their a-b abs against the dame." 

When you are seven years of age, 



132 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 

the family home is changed from the 
North District to the East, the pleas- 
antest in the town. Here your boy- 
hood — its ups and downs, its day- 
dreams and night-visions, the mirth 
and the melancholy, the alternations of 
schooling and work. Boyhood ! The 
apostle, in i Cor. xiii., speaks of only 
two life periods — the childish and the 
manly. But can you not conceive of a 
something wedged in between — that 
oddity and nondescript, the average 
boy ? Have poets or painters any- 
where pictured him farther than in 
roughest outline ? You may as well 
give it up. He is a puzzle and a mys- 
tification. 

But yoiLr boyhood, and the scenes 
revisited and remembered by you from 
over the interval of nearly sixty years. 



Reminiscences of Boyhood. 13 



You sit again on that boulder, and 
stand by the brook, now dry, or push 
into " the sugar works," 

**And the tree is your seat, that once lent you 
a shade." 

The slope where you slid down hill 
in winter. The interminable half- 
mile to school. The school-house — ■ 
for once on a sightly, pleasant spot, 
and not penuriously shoved off into 
some swampy or rocky corner, where 
the land is good for nothing else. 
The meeting-house hill you had to 
climb in going home on Sundays. 
The copse of wood where you searched 
diligently for a straight stick from 
which to make a broom, or a crooked 
one for sled-runners. The tall black 
cherry tree in the upland pasture, 



134 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 

where you heard those midgets, Ed- 
gar and WilHe, explain philosophically 
why the gray squirrel, shot dead, didn't 
come down quickly — "Coz he thought 
he was alive." The "Sodom" (next 
to " Snarlsboro " ) to which you were 
sent to mill on horseback, large bag 
strung across, and small boy perched 
on top. The west meadow, peopled 
by a community of bumble-bees, clad 
in their regimentals, and affording to 
boydom on rainy days in haying-time 
a field for heroism and enterprise in 
breaking up their habitations. And, 
not least, the brick school-house at the 
centre, where, on a well- remembered 
afternoon, you, with J. W., were de- 
livered of your first Latin translation 
(of tei'ra est rohmdd), and thereby 
ofained an elevation from which to be 



Refniniscences of Boyhood. 135 

sorry for all such of mankind as were 
not familiar with Latin literature. 

Of all the notable places in our 
town, the Village Green easily bore 
off the palm. Large and level, not 
smooth, nor adorned with shrubbery 
and sidewalks and sylvan shades — 
arbor days and village improvement 
societies hadn't been dreamed of. But 
the grand meeting-house was upon it 
centrally, then and since one of the 
costliest and goodliest in Vermont, 
and now, in its almost hundredth year, 
the town's occupancy and pride. To 
our young vision It was a veritable 
St. Peter's of Rome. 

Our calendar in those early ages 
didn't blaze numerously with holidays. 
But we had notably tzvo in the year, 
the training days, June and Fall, and 



136 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 

the coming of these was calculated 
with an accuracy and a definlteness 
unsurpassed by astronomers In their 
great vocation and their greatest 
achievements. Two mornings In the 
year, certainly, on which boys didn't 
need to be shaken violently out of 
sleep. 

But the Green ! Ruled sovereignly 
by the geese all the year round, ex- 
cepting two days, and patriotically 
abdicated by them on those two days, 
on behalf of the trainers and troopers 
and gingerbread stands, and for the 
saving of the nation. Hail Columbia ! 
Evidently the trainers had not been 
drilled at West Point, and the troopers 
had not graduated from a riding- 
school. " Light Infantry " deemed 
themselves a little prim In dress and 



Reminiscences of BoyJiood. 137 

movement, but " Floodwood " jogged 
on miscellaneously, every one for 
himself, a sort of royal democracy. 
But we had not grown critical ; and 
the trappings and tinsel martingales, 
spurs, epaulets, guns, drums, plumes, 
knapsacks, and canteens were quite 
imposing, not to say "exceeding mag- 
nifical," to young eyes. 

And then the tavern across the 
way — " hotel " was reserved for a 
more advanced civilization. With us 
it was tavern, and on training days 
our tavern was by a long reach the 
busiest place in town ; and, to say 
truth, threescore years, since passing, 
have not in this town effaced wholly 
the calamitous effects. But the demi- 
johns and decanters and tumblers and 
toddy-sticks long ago took leave of 



138 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 

that house — glad riddance — and to- 
day, in their stead, is the Post-Office, 
with boxes and benches for the better 
use and service. 

"There's a good time coming, boys ! 
Wait a little longer " — wait and work. 

The temperance cause, most glori- 
ous of causes, is grandly marching on, 
good angels helping, and is sure of 
the ultimate triumph. God and con- 
science, and truth and right and 
reason, and the Gospel entire, and the 
eternal years, are for it, and are against 
all those who, in this day of light, are 
doing the evil. Sure as the alterna- 
tion of day and night, the day is 
speeding towards us when this whole 
business of rum-selling and its fruit 
and issue, the making of drunkards. 



Reminiscences of Boyhood. 139 

will be universally an astonishment 
and an hissing — the world's amaze- 
ment that such a thinof could ever 
have been. Good friends, better quit 
that business, if engaged in it, and that 
right early. There certainly is some- 
thing better for a humane and manly 
man to be doing in this world, as 
preparation for the to-morrow and 
to-morrow before him, than to be 
kindlinQf and feedino- these death-fires 
in his fellow-men. All honor to my 
native town of to-day, for the good 
fio^ht it has fouorht ao^ainst the rum- 
fiend, and for its present stand and 
name as a temperance town in a 
temperance commonwealth. 

I meant to have said a word about 
the land here. Look upon those 
wheat-fields. I have not seen richer 



140 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 

in Illinois. In comparison of the 
loamy and generous mould here, the 
soil in Massachusetts, much, if not 
most of it, is thin, stingy, and grudg- 
ing, as if intent on solving the problem 
of how to get from the farmer the 
most in sowing, and give him back the 
least at reaping. " If this be treason 
(to Massachusetts), make the most 
of it." 

Our visit has, of course, its pathet- 
ic side. We miss the once-familiar 
forms and faces. The landscape, 
hills, vales, meadows, streams, River 
Lamoille, beautiful Lake Champlain, 
and the Adirondacks beyon<i — Nature 
in her best attire and moods. 

" Heavens ! what a goodly prospect 
spreads around ! " All these are 
much as of old. But of the people 



Reminiscences of Boyhood, 141 

there remain but a scanty few, 
scarcely more than half a dozen, who 
had attained to adult years when, in 
1827, we left for academy and college, 
and regions beyond. The many have 
passed. We visit their graves, and 
let memory have scope, without put- 
ting on sackcloth, as if disappointed 
at finding that the prophets do not 
live always in this world. There is 
another and better. " And now 
abideth faith, hope, charity — these 
three " — a strong consolation ; and, 
with good old Dr. Watts, we will sing 
again : " Let every tear be dry." 
Most affecting of such places are the 
Machpelahs of parents, brothers, 
sisters. 

The dear old town ! We could 
wish there were more of public spirit 



142 Reminiscences of Boyhood. 

and enterprise to beautify and adorn, 
where nature has been so lavish of 
her gifts. But we are not in a fault- 
finding humor. " With all thy faults 
I love thee still." It was our early 
home. 

" The earliest tie that binds the heart, 
Will ever be the brightest, strongest, 
And though the treasured links may part. 
Their memory will linger longest." 

Here we were born, and, we hope, 
were born again. Here, and espe- 
cially in that inner sanctuary, holiest 
of all, the family household, were 
vouchsafed us those plastic influences 
which, more than all things upon us 
since, have molded us to what we 
are, and have been and done, for 
better or for worse. 

A Christian family — the thousand 



Reminiscences of Boyhood. 143 

and one accidents and incidents — 
God lifting up the fallen sparrow — the 
cares and toils, the loves and longings, 
the partings and the welcomes home, 
the Bible-reading and Sabbath-keep- 
ing, the old bass-viol, the singings 
often, and the praying alway ; and 
now, how the fond recollections are all 
the more an enchantment and a power 
upon us for the years and changes 
that have come and gone, 

"As streams their channels deeper wear." 

I close these jottings with a stanza 
from a sweet hymn composed by my 
Yale classmate, Coxe, late Lieutenant- 
Governor of Maryland : 

" How such holy memories cluster, 

Like the stars when storms are past ; 
Pointing up to that far heaven 
We may hope to gain at last." 



LETTER READ AT THE ONE HUN- 
DRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVER- 
SARY OF THE FIRST CONGREGA- 
TIONAL CHURCH OF AMHERST, 
MASS. 

The authorities here bid me use the 
utmost freedom in personal reminis- 
cences. The egotism involved must 
be borne with. 

Well remember my first journey 
hither, specially the ride from Palmer ; 
the muddy roads, the shell and shackle 
of a coach, with more than a mild 
flavor of antiquity about it ; harness 
giving out three times before we 
reached Belchertown ; our Jonathan of 
a driver well equipped with straps and 
strings against contingencies. No 
" Sheridan's Ride " that. Called, as by 



Anniversary at A inkers I. 145 

direction, on Edward Dickinson, I'lsr^., 
then occupying the cast part u\ (jcn- 
cral Mack's house. After tea with 
him, a Mr. Luke Sweetscr came with 
lantern, and led me up through a piece 
of woods to his house among the trees. 
Sabbath morning, and a nervous head- 
ache. Asked Rev. Mr. Spofford to sit 
with me, and offer the long prayer. 
And what did he pray for ? One thing, 
certainly: "that in the question and 
trial now \jcA()r<i us, thy young servant 
and this people may be guided by the 
wisdom from above, and be led to such 
a conclusion as will be for the glory 
of God, and the best interests of his 
kingdom." Cjood man, this Mr. Spof- 
ford; I forgave him, and forgive now. 
But oh ! and alas ! to be strung up 
like that to begin with ! 



146 Anniversary at Amherst. 

Got through that day and evening 
somehow. The next morning, the 
church and parish committees met at 
the office of Edward Dickinson, Esq. 
I was asked to be present. They had in 
some way rightly learned that in com- 
ing I had in mind to stay but two 
Sabbaths at most. Against this they 
strongly protested. My own mind 
was unalterably fixed. Candidating / 
Whereunto shall I liken it ? Behold 
and consider a fish caught with a hook, 
and hung up by the gills. To think of 
it : a man standing in a pulpit before 
a people all eyes and ears, eagerly 
intent on learnins: what manner of 
man this is, and himself, if it be so 
with him, saying, impliedly : " Won't 
you, beloved, take me for your min- 
ister ? Do, please." Well, some 



Anniversary at Amherst. 147 

persons, strung and tuned humanly, 
can do some things which others can- 
not. A pubHc sentiment just now is 
worthily asking that our executions for 
murder be by electricity, and so be as 
short and painless as possible. The 
letter to me said, " Supply ; " and I had 
come with thoughts as far from can- 
didating as I could be, and yet be 
here. 

After nearly a two hours' talk, it 
was decided that I should remain and 
preach on the following Sabbath, and 
that, in the meantime, I should call on 
the families of the parish — the commit- 
tees taking turns in leadinof me about. 
Of that week's work Esquire Dickinson 
was said to have said : " That Colton 
is a marvel of a man — to visit two 
hundred families in one week, and tire 



148 Anniversary at Amherst. 

out seven committee-men, and pat 
every woman's baby." 

The two Sabbaths I have now 
spoken of were the first and second 
In March, 1840. The call came in due 
time. June loth following was ap- 
pointed for my ordination. 

I here reach a point in personal 
experience memorable indeed to me. 
I had come to Amherst, was counseled 
to come by the Andover Seminary 
faculty ; came to a large church and 
parish, to a people intimately con- 
nected with a chief New England col- 
leo^e, of which I had not been a 
member ; came from long and close 
seclusion of student life, to new scenes, 
cares, toils, burdens. Could I prove 
equal to the demands ? Many, my 
best friends, were in doubt of me. 



Anniversary at Amherst. 149 



Wouldn't it have been better to bemn 
with a less exactinp- charge ? 

Tuesday, June 9. Came from Bos- 
ton with my preacher, Rev. Wm. M. 
Rogers of that city. Council waiting 
for us at the house of Mr. Gideon 
Delano, in Amity Street. Council 
organized at 2 r.M., with President 
Humphrey as moderator. Docu- 
ments presented and approved. 
Then the march to the church — mod- 
erator and candidate arm in arm, and 
followed by a large company, repre- 
sentatives of the churches. Some- 
thing of fo7'm, if not of comeliness, in 
the times of old. Large gathering in 
the church. Stood nearly two hours 
for examination. Whether I stood 
the examination itself, I do not say. 
Coming out of the church after that 



i5o Anniversajy at Amherst. 

ordeal, I was met at the door by a 
Mr. Clark Green, asking me to come 
to his house on the evening of the 
next day (ordination day) and marry 
his daughter. Well, well, didn't this 
mean business and binding? 

Ordination day, Wednesday, June 
lo. Charming day. Great nurnber 
of friends from down the river. 
Church filled. The Hampshire Ga- 
zette of the following Tuesday said : 
*' All the parts were listened to with 
very unusual interest. The sermon was 
masterly in matter and manner. Dr. 
Humphrey, giving charge to the peo- 
ple, said : ' When your pastor comes, 
receive him wherever you may be. 
Disturb no dust, make no apologies. 
Do not spend the first half of the visit 
in complaining because he doesn't 



Anniversary at Amherst, i5i 

come oftener, and the last half because 
it is so short ; but make his visit so 
pleasant that he cant stay away.'" 

Thus the great day and occasion — 
great to me. At evening twilight I 
was on my way to the wedding in Mill 
Valley. Met Judge Dickinson in the 
road opposite the president's house. 
Saw at once from his dress and un- 
shaven face that he had not attended 
my ordination. Was it come to this at 
my beginnings here ? Deacon in the 
church, college educated, one of the 
wealthiest in the town. But no mat- 
ter now for the reasons, if I ever knew 
them, of this holding back. Enough 
my grateful testimony, that Judge 
Dickinson became, in no long time, 
and continued to the last to be, one of 
my best friends and helpers. 



1 52 Aniiiversmy at Amherst. 

Leaving the wedding party, I 
returned to the Amherst House, to 
my room, south front, directly over 
the office. But there was no sleep for 
me that night, nor lying down. Tzvo 
such days, with their draughts on 
nature, the exactions and exhaustions. 
The strain was nio;h to breaking. 
Once in the night I said to myself, 
" This is all a dream, and I shall wake, 
and be relieved." But, the curtain 
turned aside, and the full moon shin- 
ing brightly, and down there in plain 
sis:ht were the siorns on offices and 
stores. " This certainly is no dream." 
Then a more than half purpose to 
leave Amherst before morning. Knew 
and said, " There v^ill be a noise over 
this. Strange freak, man called and 
settled, and ran away the first night." 



An7tiversary at Amherst. i53 

But then there were five reasons which 
might satisfy my friends — chiefly this, 
that I had been unwisely counseled 
to come here, instead of taking one of 
the lighter charges that had been 
offered me. Then there were thoughts 
of dark and desperate expedients. 
Blessed thinor, that mornino; follows 
nieht. But that mornino^ brouofht no 
relief to me. At lo o'clock Mr. J. S. 
Adams called. Saw I was cast down. 
His gentleness of voice and ways, some 
of you can remember. But there was 
as yet no easement. Providential that 
the weekly church prayer-meeting 
came that (Thursday) afternoon. 
Larofe attendance at the church. 
Took my place behind the communion 
table, invoked a blessing, read a brief 
Scripture, then said, I had always 



1 54 Anniversary at Amherst. 

thought that, in assuming a pastoral 
charge, one took upon himself a great 
burden, but I never felt it as I did 
now. I was not able to speak further. 
Deacon Mack quickly rose and said : 
" Oh ! our pastor mustn't think so ; the 
burden is mutual ; it is on us all as 
well as on him, and we all, pastor and 
people, will help each other all we can. 
And, best of all, God will help us, and 
we shall be stayed up." 

Then he prayed for " Our Pastor;" 
and another prayed, and another. The 
meeting closed. On my way to my 
room, at a spot between the homes of 
Professor Fowler and Mrs. Moore, the 
terrible load rolled off suddenly and 
wholly, and if I ever went to my knees 
and thanked God for a great deliv- 
erance, I did so then. I have seen 



A^miversary at Amherst. i55 

something of care and toil and pain, 
but such a horror of sfreat darkness 
has so far been but 07ice upon me, and 
I hope and pray that the same, or Hke 
of it, may not come on me again. 

Perhaps I am wrong in saying all 
this here and now. If so, it can be 
forgiven me. I have never before 
spoken it in public, excepting once, 
and in part — in giving the right hand 
to a young brother assuming a similar 
charge. 

A year or two before I came here, 
the parish had voted that the pastor, 
Mr. Bent, receiving presents from 
non-parish members of the congrega- 
tion, should account for the same to 
the parish. I had been here but a 
few weeks, when a handsome travel- 
ing valise was sent me. I well divined 



1 56 Anniversary at Amherst. 

it was a tester — to see what the new 
man would do about it. I returned 
the gift, and with it as pleasant a 
letter as I knew how to write ; thank- 
ing the donor for his kindness, and 
adding, that I could not give to the 
parish the present he had sent to me, 
and that it would not do for me to 
break a parish rule. To the first 
meeting of parish thereafter I sent 
word that the rule was embarrassina; 
me in my parish visitation. The rule 
was rescinded, and then the men who 
had signed off returned to their place 
and part, and so that ripple sank from 
view. 

Perhaps some of the ancients here 
can call to recollection the old pulpit 
in our meeting-house in 1840. Of 
pine wood, narrow, doored, and ach- 



Anniversary at Amherst. i57 

ingly plain. Man up there had to 
look well to his elbows in essaying a 
gesture. High, and closed against all 
assaults ; but so were the old Bastile 
towers in which prisoners were im- 
mured. 

In 1842 or '43 the parish obtained 
from Boston a new pulpit — the same 
now in the house — a costly and very 
comely affair for those times. Then 
there were other fixings and furnish- 
ings. Then the grounds around the 
church must be graded and put in 
shape — a labor of days and many 
hands. You might have seen Lawyer 
Osmyn Baker, coat off, and axe in 
hand, pleading three hours in master- 
ful logic for the ejectment of a stump 
from its ancient tenure and holding on 
domain of the said church aforesaid. 



1 58 Annive7''sary at Amherst. 

There was admirable enterprise. The 
people had a mind to work. 

I am not able to boast that, in com- 
ing here, I found a church and parish 
weak, and, in leaving, left them strong. 
They were strong from the first of my 
knowing them, or knowing of them. 
Perhaps the parish has never since 
been stronger as to number, character, 
wealth, and standing of chief men. 
To show this to one whose memory 
can stretch itself to the men and 
things here fifty years ago, one has 
only to speak some of the names then 
found here. Deacons, Eleazar Gay- 
lord, John Leland, John Dickinson, 
David Mack, and Isaac Hawley ; law- 
yers, Edward Dickinson, Osmyn 
Baker, Lucius Boltwood, and, a little 
later, Charles Delano and Samuel T. 



Anniversary at Amherst. iSq 

Spaulding ; doctors, Sellon, Gridley, 
Dorrance, and Cutler ; merchants, 
Mack & Son, James Kellogg & Son, 
Sweetser & Cutler, Pitkin & Kellogg 
and Holland; reverends, Sanford and 
Spofford ; teacher, Nahum Gale, of 
the academy ; editor, J. R. Trumbull ; 
Mr. Green and Joseph Sweetser, of 
the Amherst Bank ; Messrs. Fiske Cut- 
ler, Andrew Wilson, Thomas Jones, 
J. S. and C. Adams, S. C. Carter, Sim- 
eon Clark, Newton Fitch, Linus Green, 
Aaron Belden, Horace Smith, Martin 
Kellogg, Chester Kellogg, Seth Nims, 
Postmaster Strong, the Smiths, Bak- 
ers, Boltwoods, Kelloggs, Dexters, 
and Williamses of Mill Valley ; the 
Cowles, Hawleys, and Nashes, of 
Plainville ; and the names Cowles, 
Angier, Bangs, Ayres, Eastman, and 



i6o Anniversary at Amherst. 

Dickinson of the North Roads ; these 
and more — for I draw from memory, 
and must stop somewhere. 

Surely a field, this, to call for and 
call out the best and most that any 
minister could have and give. 

As to those my deacons, specially 
the first four ; venerable men in form 
and aspect, all verging toward seventy 
years of age, crowned with hoary 
heads — men of affairs, and wise in 
counsel. Happily for us, we didn't 
then turn off our deacons every year 
or two — a practice I never believed in, 
and never shall. 

Don't you, now, be too hard on 
a young minister, if, unawares, there 
sometimes stole into his heart a tim- 
orous fragrance, just a bit of sly 
elation at seeing those venerable 



Anniversary at Amherst. i6i 

forms, his deacons, pass round with 
the bread and wine in the communion 
hour and service. We are human 
still — some of us are — having, I hope, 
a little of grace with our much of 
nature. 

It was a point of trial in those days, 
that this church and parish had no 
parsonage, no chapel, nor vestry. 
Our evenins: meeting's were held in 
the Academy building, then in care of 
a student, aided and aiding himself in 
preparation for the ministry — the late 
Rev. Dr. Isaac Bliss of Constanti- 
nople. Happily for pastor and people, 
and in the behoof of all that is fair 
and right, those aching voids here 
have been filled, to the joy and praise 
of many. 

And then, as to the old meeting- 



1 62 Anniversary at Amherst. 

house on the hill, whither the tribes 
went up. Homely in outward looks, 
doubtless, but handsome within — so we 
felt. The Lord was there in the beauty 
of his holiness ; and his presence will 
make any place beautiful. As for the 
rest, I, for one, was never kept awake 
o' nights. Rowland Hill once said : 
" Never mind for the hive ; give us 
the bees." I give joy to my suc- 
cessors, my brethren beloved, that 
they have the hive, and the bees, and 
the handsomeness all throuo-h and 
around. 

In those times of old there were 
here a few spots a little steep and 
rough in a minister's work. One was 
his having to preach two sermons on 
Fast Days. Another was his having 
to preach two sermons on Communion 



Anniversary at Amherst. 163 

Days, administer the sacrament at 
noon, and — a last straw — attend a 
prayer-meeting in the evening. And 
the tired toiler betook himself, as best 
he could, to the soothing persuasion, 
" Mollifying Ointment," that he was 
obeying the apostle's injunctions : 
*' Make full proof of your ministry," 
and " Endure hardness as a good sol- 
dier of Jesus Christ." Once the sug- 
gestion was made by some one to have 
the Communion Service occupy the 
afternoon. But there was opposi- 
tion to this, and the matter was 
dropped. It was the " custom " here, 
and in some places hereabouts, and cus- 
tom, you know, is law, and law is law, 
and what is not law is something else. 
" Innocuous desuetude " had not 
arrived in these parts. A somewhat 



164 Anniversary at Amherst, 

of the strict and rigid, you will say, in 
these things of the olden time. Per- 
haps so ; but possibly the pendulum is 
now swinging to the other and not 
better extreme. 

It is not my part to-day to give the 
history of this church. Another will 
do this. But I may, I think, and 
should, refer in a word to the Revivals 
here in 1841, '45, and '50. This last 
was a work of marked depth and 
power. The incidents and influences 
leading to it are quite instructive. 
Early in January of this year (1850), 
the prayer-meetings were notably 
fuller and more solemn. A cloud of 
mercy seemed to hang over us, and 
ready to drop down fatness. Days 
and weeks passed, but no conversions. 
What was the hinderance ? Once and 



Anniversary at Amherst. i65 

aofain the church standing committee — 
the deacons — met in the pastor's study 
to talk and pray over this question. 
Oppressing fear was felt, lest our 
dawn should shut down in darkness. 
The trouble, we came at length to 
believe, was in the rum places in the 
village, with fires of hell in full blast. 
What could be done ? My counselors 
did wisely in advising prudence, for we 
were told the rum men were desperate. 
Kind words had been used, but availed 
nothing. You can imagine a pastor's 
anxieties in such an emergency. 
March Town meeting was close by. I 
drew up two articles, and obtained five 
signatures, asking for their insertion in 
the warrant : First, to see if it be the 
wish of the town of Amherst that places 
be kept open here for the sale of intoxi- 



1 66 Anniversary at Amherst. 

eating drinks, in violation of law ; and, 
second, to see if the town will author- 
ize and instruct their selectmen to 
close such places, if such there be in 
the town. (I quote from memory and 
for substance.) I went to Lieutenant 
Dickinson of the South Parish, and 
Judge Conkey of the East, and Daniel 
Dickinson of the North, and President 
Hitchcock of the college. They all 
promised to give a helping word — Dr. 
Hitchcock to speak last. The meeting 
came. Sweetser's hall was crowded 
to the stairs. There was much excite- 
ment. A man from South Amherst 
moved that the articles be dismissed. 
This was voted down. Then the main 
question, and now the speaking as pre- 
arranged — Dr. Hitchcock closing — 
and a more affecting and effective 



Anniversary at Amherst. 167 

appeal than his I have never heard. 
He said in substance : " The people 
of Amherst are aware that I have not 
been in the habit of meddling in the 
affairs of the town. I feel that the 
interests of myself and my family are 
safe in the care of the town, and I am 
confident that the good people here, 
who have done so nobly for the col- 
lege, will not allow the institution to 
suffer injuries from evil causes among 
us ; " and then, with an emphasis that 
fairly choked his utterance, he added : 
''But it were better that the college 
shotild go down, than that young men 
should come here to be ruined by drink 
places among us'' Then the voting — 
four hundred hands shot up for abating 
the nuisances — so it was said. Contra- 
ry minds — just one hand, and one only 



1 68 Anniversary at Amherst. 

and alone. The next morning at ten 
o'clock the selectmen went to those 
rum resorts, and shut them up. 

Then the heavens gave rain — 
blessed showers — and there was a great 
refreshing. That revival work con- 
tinued till late in summer. More than 
one hundred and fifty professed hope 
in Christ ; sixty-eight persons joined 
this church, on profession, on one day 
— August II. Others came later; 
some joined elsewhere. 

I cannot let this opportunity pass, 
without expressing my very great obli- 
gations to the faculty of Amherst Col- 
lege for their unvarying courtesy and 
kindness to me from first to last of 
my labors here. Fathers and brothers 
could not have been more friendly and 
helpful. One member of the faculty. 



Anniversary at Amherst. 169 

Professor William S. Tyler, revered 
and beloved, is still spared to us ; and 
my best impulses prompt me to say, 
that a kinder heart than his I have 
never found. 

It has providentially been my fav- 
ored lot to minister to two peoples, 
and only two, in the Gospel of Christ. 
They were and are good peoples. I 
never desired any better peoples. I 
never sought nor desired any other 
peoples. These have I loved, and I 
love them still. If any one be curious 
to ask which of my two peoples I love 
most and best, my instant answer is — 
both. 



REMARKS MADE AT THE ONE HUN- 
DREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE 
FOUNDING OF THE HAMPSHIRE 
GAZETTE. 

I HAVE known personally most if not 
all of the editors of the Hampshire 
Gazette and Gazette and Courier for 
the last forty-six years. On June lo, 
1840, I was introduced to Mr. Wm. A. 
Hawley, then editor and proprietor 
of the paper. I knew him afterward 
somewhat familiarly. A charming 
man ; gentle, genial, the very soul of 
pleasantness ; of sensibilities tender as 
a woman's. That sparkling eye and 
sweet smile of his — to have seen them 
once is to remember them forever. 
Too soon for us did the fell destroyer, 
consumption, pluck that flower. 



Remarks at A7iniversary. \"]i 

With Mr. Thomas Hale my ac- 
quaintance was slight. In January, 
1858, I read to him some jottings 
of mine, entitled ''The Old White 
Meeting-House," which were kindly 
accepted by him, and printed in the 
Gazette of that month. 

Mr. J, R. Trumbull was for some 
time a member of my Amherst congre- 
gation. I have kept track of him in 
years since — have seen him worked, 
and worn, and wasted, physically, to a 
thinness too tenuous to cast a shadow. 
A very able and acceptable service to 
the public has been rendered by him ; 
and for that service, and for his intrin- 
sic worthiness, this city, by her suf- 
frages, is doing him deserved honor. 
Long live -Mr. Trumbull ! 

Then the Northampton Courier, be- 



172 Remarks at Anniversary * 

fore its merging in the Gazette — not a 
mustard-pot falling into a milk-pan — 
for neither paper was mustard nor 
milk, but meat for strong men. Mr. 
A. W. Thayer — ardent, open, frank- 
spoken, carrying his whole soul in his 
face. I see him walking — those infirm, 
unsteady, straggling steps, almost as 
if about to surrender him to the floor 
or pavement. A pleasant man. I 
thank him to-day for his hand-shaking, 
and for his kind, encouraging word 
spoken to me as I came down from the 
infinite altitude of the Old Church 
pulpit, as that pulpit was forty-five 
years ago. That word didn't harm the 
young preacher — it did him good — it 
braced his resolution to try again. 

Mr. Lewis Ferry, another of the 
worthy editors, was of my Easthamp- 



Remarks at Anniversary, 173 

ton parish. I attended him in his 
decline and death. 

And now our generous friend and 
host, Mr. Henry S. Gere. I cannot 
tell how many years the Northampton 
press or presses and peoples have had 
his toils. Veteran editor ; and veteran 
SOLDIER also, content with having 
served his country as best he could in 
her supreme peril, and not vilely cast- 
ing away his shield of honor afterward 
by asking for a pension. In stature 
proudly eminent ; yet stoops a little, 
not from age or aches, certainly not 
from fear of anybody, but, I ween, from 
work and overwork ; patiently plod- 
ding at his task the year in and out, to 
serve and please and profit a host of 
intelligent readers, who look to him 
and his work as a sort of oracle with- 



174 Remarks at Anniversary. 

in his line and sphere. Plains and 
valleys, village and villa, mountains 
and all hills, echoing with carrier bell- 
call ; and such ready response in open- 
ing door and gate to bring in our old, 
familiar and ever-welcome friend, the 
Hampshire Gazette. 

Now, these men of the Gazette from 
first till this present ; men good and 
brave — always on the side of the true 
and right — ready unto all good works 
— leading men, resolutely and worthily 
serving in town, church, parish, and 
school affairs, as well as in their more 
strictly professional sphere. Tribute 
to whom tribute is due. If I make 
any exception to this good rule, it shall 
be in the case of Mr. Gere, who stole 
one of the choicest of my Easthamp- 
ton flock a little while before my as- 



Remarks at Anfiiversary. 176 

suming the charge there. For that I 
never thanked him, and I never will. 

And now, turning, if I may, for a 
moment, from the men of the Gazette, 
to their calling and work. It is quite 
observable, how many the points in 
which two of the leading professions 
are much at one. The editor and the 
minister. The press and the pulpit. 
The paper and the sermon. Sunday 
forenoon and Tuesday afternoon. 
Both callings are honorable. Both are 
powers among a people. Think of 
14,000 newspapers and periodicals, 
sending forth two and a half billion 
copies as annual aggregate circulation 
in this our land. And think of single 
presses that can strike off 24,000 
copies an hour. What a mighty en- 
ginery is here ! Seest thou a man 



176 Remarks at Anniversary. 

defying the press ? Mark him. He is 
already upon the ragged edge of des- 
peration. 

Both callings are conservators of 
good ; are patrons of industry, order, 
good taste, morals, and manners ; of 
virtue, knowledge, temperance, godli- 
ness — are indeed indispensable to a 
republican and Christian civilization. 
Instance the Gazettes staunch advo- 
cacy of the Temperance cause week by 
week. And the Springfield Republi- 
can in its splendid fight against the 
rum-demons — Grog and Magrog, de- 
vouring locusts ; "and they have tails 
like unto scorpions, and there are 
stings in their tails ; and their power 
is to hurt men. And they have a king 
over them, who is the angel of the bot- 
tomless pit, whose name in the He- 



Remarks at Anniversajy. 177 

brew tongue is Abaddon, but in the 
Greek tongue he hath his name Apol- 
lyon." All honor to the Gazette and 
the Repziblican for their noble fight 
against this curse of curses. So of 
our presses at large ; with all their 
faults, they are still a terror to evil- 
doers, and a praise to them that do 
well. 

Both callings, the editorial and cler- 
ical, demand a good equipment of tal- 
ents and culture — must interest all 
classes — must be educators and re- 
finers of public sentiment — must re- 
prove and rebuke — must have a voice 
of gladness and a smile for everybody, 
and some others — must have their 
own convictions, and the courage of 
them — must be fair and unbiased, 
without partiality or prejudice — must 



178 Remarks at Anniversary. 

not take sides in controversies and 
quarrels — must be on our side in any 
event, and every time. 

Both places will have plenty of 
counsel how to do your work, and 
plenty of criticism of that work when 
you have done it the best you 
could. Both places involve an inexo- 
rable constancy of exacting toil. Sun- 
day will come, and Tuesday will come, 
and must be prepared for. That tired 
worker, almost collapsed and caved in 
as he is on Sunday evening, or Tues- 
day evening, is already, quite likely, 
boosting himself up to think out a 
something seasonable and good for the 
next issue of sermon or paper. That 
constant, patient, plodding, persistent 
toil — such tax and levy upon brain and 
nerve, with scarcely so much as a let- 



Remarks at Anniversary. 179 

up and release once a year to go a-fish- 
ing. Why, even our fevers are mostly 
intermittent, and our present and pop- 
ular malaria deals a little more gently 
with us every other day. 

In one particular, men of the cloth 
have, perhaps, an advantage over men 
of the quill and scissors. Look at 
that editor at the foot of one of those 
Hills Difficulty, which he has to get 
over or get around. I see him sitting 
in his 2/;2easy chair, with clinched teeth 
and knit brow, pestered, puzzled, per- 
plexed, in sore quandary what to do 
with that communication which some 
one of us, aspiring wights, has sent in. 
To print, or not to print ; to make one 
mad, and stop his paper, or to set many 
wondering what in the world the editor 
could have been thinking of, to put 



i8o Remarks at Anniversary. 

that into his paper. And specially 
the poetry, wedding and otherwise — 
here's the rub. Some good, some 
very good, If you please, and some — 
well, perhaps, not equaling Bryant's 
or Longfellow's, but giving a certain 
jingle; and so do brass bells on a mule, 
^^^g'g'^^g' ^ pu^& through sleet and 
slush. Not that we, the sometime 
scribblers for the press, are mules ; not 
by a long way. We fling back the 
insinuation. But gently and softly 
here, lest you throw frost upon that 
blossoming or budding nondescript 
ineffable something, named Genius. 

What manner of man, then, the 
editor or minister must be ! — a very 
bundle and jumble of incompatibilities 
and impossibilities rolled together, and 
rounded Into a human personality ! 



Remarks at Anniversary. i8i 

On this anniversary occasion we ten- 
der our hearty congratulations to Mr. 
Gere on his place and position as to-day 
the editor and proprietor of his and 
our Hampshire Gazette — a paper count- 
ing and crowning to-day its Hundred 
Years of honorable history, and giving 
promise of an equally honorable 
career for a hundred years to come. 



A LEAF OR TWO FROM MY NOTES OF 
TRAVEL FORTY YEARS AGO. 

April 28, 1846.^ — Left Fredericks- 
burg, Va., at 6 A.M., by steamer 
Planter, down the Rappahannock ; 
Baltimore, Md., at 6 a.m., April 29. 
Hotel on Light Street. After break- 
fast, went to Mr. Rowe's, on Green 
Street. Had talk with Rev. Mr. 
Snow, a boarder there — Mr. S., once 
minister in Whately, and afterwards in 
South Hadley Falls. Obtained from 
him a note to Mr. Johnson, War- 
den of Maryland Penitentiary — this 
note to open the way for me to see 
Rev. Charles T. Torrey, a prisoner 
there. The warden a polite and 
obliging official. Mr. Torrey dying of 



Notes of Travel 183 

consumption. The physician was on 
the ground, and readily consented to 
my going in. But first I must open 
the box (large, square, paper box) con- 
taining the shroud in which Mr. Tor- 
rey was to be laid out. I carried this 
to the prison at the request of Mr. 
Snow, as it was thought that Mr. T. 
might not live a day longer. Left my 
charge, after opening it, in care of 
warden. Went with him through sev- 
eral massive doors, and up two flights 
of stairs. Entered at last a lone 
room, evidently designed for the sick, 
there being a succession of iron pallets 
or cots, two feet high from the floor, 
and each separated from its neighbor 
by hanging screens. Each room very 
narrow. Passed several of these be- 
fore I came to Mr. Torrey's. Recog- 



184 Notes of Travel. 

nized him instantly. Same fine face 
and expression — intelligence — refine- 
ment — decision ; always beautiful, but 
never more so than now. Peculiar 
expression of eyes, which were con- 
sumptively bright. Warden asked 
him if he remembered me. T. said 
he did. We were in Yale College 
together. I had last seen him at 
Andover Seminary, on a visit of his 
there in '36. He had studied theology 
there, and was at that time pastor in 
Providence, R. I. Torrey said he was 
glad to see me. Held me steadily by 
the hand. I alluded to his feeble bod- 
ily condition, and said I hoped it was 
better with his soul. He smiled and 
said, " Oh ! yes." I asked him if he 
suffered pain. He replied, " No, but 
little." I spoke of Judge Dickinson 



Notes of Travel. 185 

and Lucius Boltwood, Esq., noted 
abolitionists, my parishioners in Am- 
herst. He smiled, and said, " I re- 
member them well ; they were good 
friends." He added, "There is 
another good friend in Amherst, a 
Dr." — he hesitated, his brow showing 
effort to recall the name. I said, " Dr. 
Gardner Dorrance." His countenance 
lighted up as he quickly replied, "Yes, 
yes, that is the one." I spoke of Dr. 
D. as a man of large frame, and of a 
soul as large. He smiled almost to a 
laugh, and said, with great energy, 
" Larger I " I spoke of the proba- 
bility of his being near his end. After 
a moment he replied, with great 
emotion, his chin quivering as he 
answered, " Yes." I said I hoped he 
was happy in the prospect of the 



1 86 Notes of Travel. 

release here, and of the joy beyond. 
He said, "Yes, I am." I said I hoped 
he recognized in all he was passing 
through the all-wise and good ordering 
of Him who chastens whom He loves, 
and makes all things work together for 
their good. He replied, "■ I think I 
do." I said, '' If we are children of 
God, then all is well." He replied with 
energy, " Yes, indeed." He requested 
me to pray with him. I did so, kneel- 
ing by his cot — the warden uncover- 
ing, and sitting still at the foot of the 
cot. Once, in the prayer, Torrey gave 
an audible response. It was when I 
prayed that Christ, the sympathizing 
Friend and Saviour, would manifest 
himself to him in his loveliness and 
glory. After prayer, I said I was 
afraid I had stayed too long. He 



Notes of Travel. 187 

answered, " Oh, no ! " Said he was 
" very glad I had called " — smiling 
the while, and still holding me by the 
hand. As we bade each other good- 
by he seemed to be struggling with 
emotions that didn't find utterance. 

Torrey's room was well lighted and 
aired. His face and hands were clean 
and white. His shirt was very coarse 
unbleached linen — prison cloth. Bed- 
clothes otherwise not particularly 
noticeable. A man — looking like a 
prisoner — was in the room, mixing 
medicines. The warden came with me 
to the outer gate, and, giving me his 
hand, said, with evident emotion, " I 
do wish he were away from here." A 
man in Mr. Torrey's condition, yet so 
calm and resigned, no word of com- 
plaint — and such recognition of God's 



1 88 Notes of Travel. 

good hand as all in all. Leaving the 
prison, I went to the top of Washing- 
ton (Baltimore) Monument, and jotted 
down as accurately as I could the 
words and incidents of the prison in- 
terview. Had indescribable emotions. 
Abhorred slavery. I had a few days 
before seen, from the dome of the Cap- 
itol in Washington, a gang of slaves, 
chained or tied together, and, under 
an overseer, whip in hand, going, " like 
dumb, driven cattle," to their daily 
task. And all this in a land boast- 
ing of freedom and equal rights ! I 
had, five years before this, preached at 
King George Court-house, Va. My 
brother took the precaution to look my 
sermon over carefully before I went 
into the pulpit — (the judge's bench, in 
a court-house) — to see if there was in 



Notes of T^'-avel. 189 

it anything fatefully anti-slavery ; he 
very kindly wishing to ward off from 
me any likelihood of lynching, and ■ 
myself also having no special desire 
for that sort of thing. 

Well, well, the times have changed, 
and we've changed in them. The spot 
and region of that court-house have 
since been overrun, burnt, and black- 
ened by both armies, the Confederate 
and the Federal, and have for a time 
since been little better than a howlino- 
waste. And slavery itself, abhorred of 
God and man, has been swept from 
there, anJ from the land — torn up 
and rooted out by the very means 
adopted and pursued by the South 
to spread and perpetuate the curse 
upon the nation, North and South 
together. 



190 Notes of Travel. 

" There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough-hew them how we will." 

I should here add a word or two 
respecting Mr. Torrey. He died two 
or three days, I think, after my visit 
with him. I was told at the time, 
that his friends from Massachusetts 
petitioned Governor Pratt to allow 
Mr. Torrey to be carried to a neigh- 
borinof house, and die there, and not 
within prison walls. This, within a 
week of his death, and after the physi- 
cian had said that recovery was wholly 
out of the question. The governor's 
reply, as reported, was : "If it was a 
case of murder, I would, but as it is, I 
will not ; this running slaves away has 
got to be stopped." 

As to Mr. Torrey's " crime : " I do 
not know the reasons of his going to 



Notes of Travel. 191 

reside in Baltimore. I have never seen 
evidence that he went there with the 
intention of assisting slaves to escape 
from their thralldom. Two slaves, al- 
ready miles on their way of escape, 
found him in the city, and asked his 
aid. Obeying an impulse, springing 
up from his long-cherished hatred of 
slavery, he took the two men into a 
wagon, and carried them ten miles on 
the way to Pennsylvania and freedom ; 
and they, naturally thinking that a man 
is himself, and that his legs are his own, 
unpopular as the doctrine has been, 
somehow found themselves pushing 
toward the North Star. This was the 
whole head and front of Mr. Torrey's 
offendinor. Nothino; more or else was 
charcred ao;ainst him. For this he must 
languish and die within prison walls. 



192 Notes of Travel. 

Mr. Torrey was buried in Mount 
Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass. 
A granite column marks his resting- 
place in a beautiful dell not far from 
the entrance gate. A profile of him, 
cut in stone, is at the head of the col- 
umn. The figure of a slave is at the 
base, his face turned up toward the 
face of his deliverer, his arms also, 
and from them are chains falling to 
the ground. 

Often as I am able, I go to that 
beautiful cemetery — I know of no 
other the equal of it on the whole, 
though I have been in many of the 
best — and doing so, I never fail to visit, 
first and dearest to me, the grave of 
my martyr friend, Rev. Charles T. 
Torrey. 

I may add, Laat Mr. Torrey's wife 



Notes of Travel. 193 

was Mary, daughter of Rev. Dr. Ide, 
of Medway, Mass. She was a highly 
cultivated lady, and survived him a 
few years, a deep mourner over his 
cruel taking off. 

A. M. C. 

Easthampton, March i, 1887. 



13 



A FEW TOUCHES, IMPRESSIONS, AND 
RECOLLECTIONS LESS OR MORE 
ACCURATE, CONCERNING THE 
MINISTERS OF THE EDWARDS 
CHURCH AND PARISH IN NORTH- 
AMPTON. 

Rev. John Todd, D.D. He was 
himself, and not another, and not much 
like any other. It would be difficult 
to conceive of two John Todds as 
inhabiting simultaneously this mun- 
dane sphere. Of large frame — loose- 
jointed, not so closely knit and com- 
pact as some. Strong and stalwart. 
Face with great protruding ridges — 
and mountains imply valleys. Lips 
prominent and compressed — as much 
as to say, " This thing has got to go, 



A Few Touches, 196 

anyway." Hair bristling and stiff — 
perpendicular, horizontal — every way 
except downwards. His head, in its 
whole contour, looking not a little like 
the Charter Oak, with its branches 
scraggy and defiant. And yet a hand- 
some man, if handsome is that hand- 
some does. The nuts of roughest 
bark are apt to be of sweetest meat. 
Get within. Mind, like a Corliss 
steam-engine — and moving any num- 
ber of wheels. Of multifarious read- 
ing, and for such reading an appe- 
tite omnivorous, insatiable, devouring 
every green thing, and digesting 
and assimilating the same ; and so, 
in no long time, out it came, foliage, 
flower, fruit, some truth graven in- 
effaceably upon your memory and 
heart. As to his will and purposes, 



196 A Fetv Touches, 

reminding one of what John Foster 
ascribes to John Howard — all Johns 
— "an untamable efficacy of soul." 
And an affectionate nature withal, 
loving, as he did, every good body and 
thine, with his might, and loving unto 
the end. Of a many-sided nature — 
not equilateral, not rounded out to 
fullness in all its parts, but more com- 
plete in some parts than others — and 
where on earth is the perfect man ? 
I know not any. In simplicity a 
child ; was taken in, cheated many 
a time, by the sharper than he. Not 
skilled in the arts of diplomacy or 
finesse. He was artless as any child. 
He hadn't the training nor the in- 
stinct to untwist all the small knots 
in a Yankee's head. He hadn't, as 
some have, the keen, quick sense to 



A Few Touches. 197 

discover, nor the care to know, all the 
hidden springs of human action. He 
took men as he found them, not bur- 
rowing in the dirt, but above ground. 
He was not a trapper nor snarer. He 
shot birds flying. He took the fox 
on the foot. He caught the fish as 
it came along. He was like Nimrod, 
a mighty hunter ; and he was a fisher 
as well — a fisher of men. And what 
a prodigious worker / exemplifying, in 
his own life and labors, what I remem- 
ber to have read in his Student's 
Manual, more than forty years ago, 
viz., that you cannot have too many 
irons in the fire at once — put in 
shovel, tongs, poker, everything. 
"Well, John," said his college and 
seminary classmate, as they came out 
of the chapel of Andover Seminary, 



198 A Few Touches. 

at the close of the graduating exer- 
cises — "Well, John, what now are 
you going to do in the world ? " The 
answer came instantly, " I am going 
to make a noise." And he has made 
it, and the sounds are prolonged, and 
will never die. To-day his works are 
read in a score of languages. Por- 
tions of his writings were found among 
the effects of Sir John Franklin in the 
Arctic seas. A great and good man — 
a i^are man — take him for all and all. 
Oh, for a thousand like him, to bless 
the church and the world ! 

The next minister was the Rev. 
John Mitchell. I knew a something 
of him. I met him in one or two of 
the associational meetings, before the 
association was divided. He was the 
acknowledged oracle and authority 



A Few Touches. 199 

with the old Hampshire Association 
on all questions of church rule and 
government. Of infirm health — pale 
— bland and pleasant expression of 
face. Stooped a little in walking — 
kept his eyes on the ground, as if in 
deep study, as he probably was. Was 
a clear thinker — carried his thoughts 
to conclusions, convictions, principles. 
Carried a level and cool head. Was 
quite conservative in his opinions of 
men and matters. Wouldn't have 
done much as a radical reformer — had 
more of caution than of push and dar- 
ing. Was, I think, a better writer 
than speaker. Hadn't the physical 
force to throw out adequatel}^ what 
was upon the carefully written pages 
before him. A very instructive 
preacher he certainly must have been. 



200 A Few Touches. 

An excellent counselor. A true man. 
A sincere Christian — holding the faith 
in a eood conscience. A faithful 
minister— a bishop blameless. He 
sowed good seed here, and the reapers 
will be pfatherino- in the harvest of it 
in long years yet "to be. Judge noth- 
ing before the time. " Stillest streams 
oft water fairest meadows, and the 
bird that flutters least is longest on 
the wing." 

And now the next pastor. Rev. E. 
P. Rogers, D.D., as different from 
the last as could well be imagined. 
Bright-hearted, healthy, hale, and well 
met. Handsome in form, face, feat- 
ures. Of easy and graceful manners. 
Ready in speech. Had on his lips a 
pleasant word for every passer-by. 
Knew everybody, man, woman, child 



A Few Touches. 201 

— knew them by name, and called 
them all by their names. Never 
passed people in the street without 
noticine them. Was never cauorht 
looking on the sidewalk, and wrapped 
in brown study — never that. He 
would have made a poor monk, to 
wear a cowl, and be silent and sullen. 
He would quickly drive the moths and 
spiders from that cell. " The stones 
would cry out of the wall, and the 
beam out of the timber would answer 
it." Think of Brother Rogers as 
thrust into an inner prison at mid- 
night. He would sing those prison- 
doors open, as Paul and Silas did. 
He is a child of the lio-ht and of the 
day — a good man and a good friend 
to meet anywhere. He could throw 
a salutation to you fifty rods with the 



202 A Few Touches, 

utmost grace and ease. He was the 
cheerfulest of shepherds — a quaHty 
too rare, but a power — specially with 
children, who love cheerful folks. It 
was a good change from Mr. Mitchell, 
who in his way was perhaps just as 
good. Parishes, like other peoples, 
incline to contrasts and opposites. It 
is well, else they would get their ways 
into those ruts which are a hinderance 
to good wagoning, as wagoning is in 
this world. In one respect, * Brother 
Rogers surpassed any preacher I have 
ever known — viz., in his easy and 
fluent use of a manuscript — reading 
as if he didn't read — catching the 
words by glances so quick as to leave 
you in doubt whether he takes his 
eyes off you at all. And he has, in 
admirable degree, that quick and off- 



A Few Touches. 203 

hand readiness in all his mind and 
manners. Bright-minded ; cup full 
and running over of the oil of glad- 
ness. He lives on the south side of 
the house. Coming from Amherst, 
and meetingf him on the corner of 
Bridge and Market Streets, at a time, 
many years ago, when incendiary fires 
were here almost every other night, 
I said, " Brother Rogers, what in the 
world are you coming to here in 
Northampton ?" Quick as a flash was 
the answer, " Coming to ashes, as fast 
as possible." Having served several 
churches. North and South, in the 
good work. Dr. Rogers is now, and 
has been for a goodly number of years, 
the accepted and beloved pastor of a 
large and influential Dutch Reformed 
Church on Fifth Avenue, New York. 



204 A Few Touches, 

And late be the day of his trans- 
lation ! 

Then came a pastor of still another 
pattern — Rev. George E. Day, D.D. 
A still and quiet man — scholarly, and 
much addicted to books. Blameless 
and harmless, a son of God, without 
rebuke. Loving his people, and loved 
by them all. An able preacher, bring- 
ing beaten oil into the sanctuary — 
sermons that had cost him many hours 
of patient study. You never had from 
him a crude address. It would have 
been to him as the breaking of his 
bones to find himself closing a clumsy 
or an awkward sentence. Everything 
must have the finishing: touch. He 
was not, like General Taylor, " Rough 
and Ready." He must have thne for 
perfecting his works. He wouldn't 



A Few Touches. 20 5 

have made a grreat Methodist — and 
that people are of the best. He wasn't 
as well fitted as some for roughing it 
in out-door work. I think of him as 
carefully searching out the usages and 
meanings of the Greek particles and 
the Hebrew vowel-points. The mar- 
vel to me is, how, with his studious 
turn, and his fondness for the library 
and its attractions, he could have 
served this people so long, so ably, so 
efficiently, and so acceptably, in the 
practical and every-day duty and work 
of a Christian minister. 

A good work he did here, and a 
good name he has left here, and the 
remembrance of him is fondly cher- 
ished in loving hearts. Enemies he 
had none ; he couldn't have ; it wasn't 
in him to make enemies. He is one 



2o6 A Few Totcches, 

of the gentlest — one of the Johns — a 
disciple whom Jesus loves. And hav- 
ing done his work well and worthily 
among you, whereof you are witnesses, 
he is now servingr the Master with 
equal ability and acceptableness in 
another sphere of Christian labor — as 
professor in Yale Theological Semi- 
nary. 

Well, we have come down in the 
succession from Adam to Enoch — 
walking with God, but not translated — 
not yet. I don't care for the number 
in the succession, whether seventh or 
fifth from Adam. I was thlnkino^ how 
good a man Enoch was — ihat was all. 

Rev. Gordon Hall, D.D. I shall 
not say many things concerning him, 
to his face — things I zvouid say if I 
might, consistently with sparing his 



A Few Touches. 207 

modesty and blushes. I have a score 
aofainst him, which I wish were cleared 
off ; and I may as well take the sweet 
revenge now. In giving me the 
charge at my installation in Easthamp- 
ton, twenty-four years ago last March 
— both of us standing in the pulpit — 
Mr. Hall looked at me over his spec- 
tacles with his sharp eyes, and as he 
spoke, moved his head somewhat thus 
— . My little daughter in the front 
pew down there went to weeping. 
When asked, on arriving at home, 
what she cried for, she replied : 
"Because Mr. Hall was scolding at 
father." I can forgive Brother Hall 
that one offense. It isn't in him to be 
inflicting wounds on anybody — not if 
he can help it. A thorough scholar — 
Valedictorian of his class at Yale Col- 



2o8 A Few Touches. 

lege, and subsequently a tutor there — 
a graduate from Yale Theological 
Seminary, and for some years pastor 
of the church in Wilton, Conn. — the 
native home of Professor Moses 
Stuart, of eminent fame — Mr. Hall 
came here thoroughly furnished unto 
all good works — prepared to bring 
forth, out of the treasures of God's 
Word, not things old and old, but 
** things new and old." And thus, for 
a quarter of a century, as a good shep- 
herd, he has been feeding this flock 
of God — feeding you with knowledge 
and understanding. And not feeding 
merely, but watching over you in the 
Lord — a grand, good pastor, teacher, 
counselor, guide, comforter, and friend. 
A very discreet adviser ; slow to 
speak, and slow to wrath ; patient to 



A Few Touches. 209 

wait and hear any side, and all sides ; 
and then forming and giving out a 
judgment which is about as sure to 
be right as anything human is so. 
Preserving, perhaps, the golden mean 
between McClellan's caution, and 
Sheridan's dash. You never find him 
expressing a hasty opinion regarding 
an important matter. He thinks once, 
twice, three times, before he gives you 
his conclusion. "A fool uttereth all 
his mind : but a wise man keepeth it 
in till afterward." And how holily and 
unblamably he has behaved himself 
among you ; how he has borne you on 
his heart and in his toils — and what 
rich, ripe fruits have here been grown 
and garnered for your profiting and 
God's glory ; and how, under his min- 
istry, you have been prospered, 
14 



2IO A Few Touches. 

exchanging the former sanctuary for 
this one, more comely and convenient 
— and how, best of all, this church 
has been visited from on hig-h with 
showers of blessings, and been built 
up a spiritual house, to offer up spirit- 
ual sacrifices, acceptable, well-pleasing 
to God — all this is known to you and 
to many, who rejoice with you to-day 
— this Silver Wedding-day of this 
pastorate here. 

A twenty-five years' ministry among 
the same people, and the mutual affec- 
tion between pastor and people never 
stronger nor • fresher than to-day — 
never more radiant with all brightness, 
and redolent of all sweetness. Twenty- 
five years — and here he is, still at his 
post, watching for the souls of the men 
and women born into this world during 



A Few Touches, 211 

his life among you, and marrying the 
children of those whom he baptized in 
infancy. Twenty-five years — great ad- 
vantage — time for the o^rowth of ac- 
quaintance, good esteem, and confi- 
dence, telling, better than words can 
tell, of the grand beneficence and bene- 
fit of a permanent ministry. And God 
grant, if in his good pleasure, that the 
sacred relation may yet continue a 
blessing and benediction in long years 
to come ! 

I find, on looking back, that I have 
spoken of " wouldn't bes or have 
beens." Dr. Todd would not have 
been a good diplomatist ; Mr. Mitchell 
would not have been a good reformer, 
image breaker ; Dr. Rogers wouldn't 
be a good monk, nor Professor Day 
a good Methodist ; and Dr. Hall 



212 A Few Touches. 

wouldn't be — well, I don't know what 
he wouldn't or couldn't be and do, with 
God's blessing, in any line of Chris- 
tian and ministerial goodness. 

Twenty-five years — and what a hold 
Gordon Hall has on this people and 
the people of this region ! I am 
thinking of one of your grand old 
elms, that by time and trial has struck 
down deep into the ground its thou- 
sand tough and stringy roots. Long 
may he be spared to you, and late his 
departure for the skies. So shall he 

" Be the sweet presence of a good diffuse, 
And in diffusion ever more intense ; 
So shall he join the choir invisible, 
Whose music is the gladness of the world." 



REMARKS MADE AT THE CELEBRA- 
TION OF THE CENTENNIAL OR- 
GANIZATION OF THE WESTHAMP- 
TON CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 

Mr. Chairman: — In responding to 
the sentiment you have assigned to 
me, I regret my inability to charac- 
terize suitably the men who have 
labored here in the Gospel ministry. 
My knowledge of them is too imper- 
fect ; and there are here those who 
knew them much better. Abler tongues 
and pens have done them reverence ; 
and their praise is in all our churches. 
Highly favored this people have been, 
and are, in respect of their pastors and 
teachers. 



214 Remarks at Centennial. 

Good men and true, every one of 
them, from first till now, and now 
also. 

And able men — educated, studious, 
scholarly ; wise in counsel, and excel- 
lent in working — workmen that needed 
not to be ashamed. Father Hale, for 
example : a Yale graduate ; massive 
judgment and common sense ; clear 
and cool-headed, self-poised, sagacious ; 
knowing perfectly when to speak, 
and when to be silent ; eminent as a 
peace-maker, and making peace in all 
this region. 

And earnest men ; staid and quiet, 
yet with fire in their bones, and doing 
with their might. Foster and Bissell : 
with a force and fervor eager for any 
good fight and fray : steam-engines, 
yet well controlled ; a hiding of a 



Remarks at Centefinial. 2i5 

power, and a showing of it, upon fit 
occasions. 

And pleasant men. Coggin and 
Allender : affectionate, gentle, cheer- 
ful ; living in sunny-side, and leaving 
behind them fragrant memories that 
shall long continue with us, 

" Embalmed with all our hearts can give — 
Our praises and our tears." 

Mr. Drury, when preparing for the 
ministry, taught in my native Vermont 
town, during a winter, a day-school 
and an eveningr sinorinor-school. I well 
remember his custom of closing the 
singing-school exercise with the jubi- 
lant tune and hymn — his favorite — 

"Ye tribes of Adam join." 

With those early impressions, I 



2i6 Remarks at Centennial. 

cannot now- think of him otherwise 
than as a very pleasant man and 
minister. 

And, not least, men sound and 
strong in the Christian faith. In this 
matter Father Hale struck the key- 
note, and his successors, in their sing- 
ing and preaching here, have strictly 
kept the time and tune. " But here," 
says one, '' you lug in the old cate- 
chism and primer." Well, what of that? 
This people are not hopelessly spoiled 
— not quite — not yet. Doctrine and 
dogma : the terms have no terror to 
me. And if any man, standing on this 
hill of Zion, "beautiful for situation," 
think men die of the Assembly's cate- 
chism, let him look around. Men do 
not die in that way, nor droop. Some 
of my pleasantest recollections cluster 



Remarks at Centesimal. 217 

around that old and venerable symbol. 
And some of my queerest and quaint- 
est. I well remember, in my early 
childhood, being a good deal puzzled 
with those first two lines in the primer : 

" In Adam's fall 
We sinned all." 

" Sinnedall ! " What sort of a craft 
could that be ? I may be told that 
such teaching and preaching makes a 
people sour, unsocial, demure. Not 
a bit of it. If I were in search of a 
man who carries about with him 

*' wreathed smiles, 
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek. 
And love to live in dimple sleek," 

I would look for him in Westhamp' 
ton. The catechism taking the juices 



2i8 Remarks at Centennial, 

out of a man, and leaving him a grim 
skeleton or a dry, hard stick ? Beg 
your pardon. Just look at Dr. Dorus 
Clark ! Bright as high-noon, and green 
and fresh as any amaranthine flower, 
and yet an octogenarian — and, oh, mir- 
acle and marvel ! a lover, defender, and 
advocate of the Westminster Assem- 
bly's Catechism ! Will wonders never 
cease ? Sedate and sober-minded this 
people may be, but not glum and 
moody, not fretful and peevish, and 
creeping into the jaundice. " Like 
people, like priest." Did a mortal man 
or woman ever see Rev. David Coo-orin 
mope about a whole day in sulks and 
duskiness, a walking mummy ? I 
trow not. " A merry heart doeth good 
like a medicine." This people have 
been fed with " food convenient " — 



Remarks at Centennial. 219 

with knowledge and understanding, 
ministering to good health, heartiness, 
humor, whole-souledness, hospitality. 
Look upon these tables ; eat, drink, 
and be merry. I wonder if anybody, 
leaving this town, ever felt in him the 
sensation of hunger ? 

But, really, isn't it a little hard to be 
brought up on such fare — such a pro- 
portion of doctrinal preaching — for 
nobody charges that the practical has 
been left out in the preaching here — 
and the true practical has, and must 
have, its foundation in doctrine. The 
Irishman didn't succeed in building his 
chimney from top downwards. True 
it is, some men are weary to bear these 
hard doctrines, so-called. It is told 
of the old minister of the 34th Massa- 
chusetts Regiment, that he sometimes 



2 20 Remarks at CentenniaL 

preached a whole half-hour on the 
doctrine of predestination ; and that 
the soldiers, before the close of the 
service, were afflicted with such dread- 
ful coughs as might have made a 
stranger fear for the health of the com- 
mand. That will do for a war legend ; 
and for such let it pass. Soldiers can 
be brave, and believing, and blithe- 
some. In 1862, that blackest time 
in our late war, I heard Rev. Cap- 
tain Bissell — afterward captain, and 
since doctor of divinity, missionary, 
author, and what more— say that he 
could not study ; that he was aching 
in his very bones to enlist and push 
to the front. And push he would and 
did. But that v/as heroism, not hypo- 
chondria. 

" Strong meat belongeth to them of 



Remarks at Centennial. 221 

full age." This the people of West- 
hampton have demanded, and have 
had, and the demand and supply prove 
and approve each other. And it isn't 
going much farther to say that the 
people here have demanded sermons as 
are sermons — not rambling, off-hand 
talk. Get, if you can, so much as the 
conception of this people, sitting Sab- 
bath after Sabbath, listening delight- 
edly, or even patiently, to flippant 
volubility, " sound and fury, signifying 
nothing." No ; they have not lived on 
sea-foam, and snow-broth, and whipped 
syllabub. They have had better fare, 
more substantial and sustaining and 
satisfying — the "sincere milk," and 
the " strong meat " — and have grown 
thereby. The written sermon, and de- 
livered from the manuscript, most of 



22 2 Remarks at Centennial. 

the time, if not all the time. The 
best hours and the best thoughts of 
the week through. " And moreover, 
because the preacher was wise, he still 
taught the people knowledge ; yea, he 
gave good heed, and sought out, and 
set in order many proverbs. The 
preacher sought to find out acceptable 
words : and that which was written 
was upright, even words of truth." 
You may liken the quill or pen to 
the Michigan plough ; and the man 
using it in patient plodding work dur- 
inof the week "is like unto a man 
that is an householder, who bringeth 
forth out of his treasure " — not thingfs 
old and old, but " things new and 
old ; " while the off-hand extemporizer, 
ten to one, is shallow and superficial, 
scratching the surface ; or, as we. 



Remarks at Centennial. 223 

when boys, in throwing small, thin 
stones upon the water, called it — skit- 
teruig. From my door at home I 
have often looked off westward and 
seen the glorious sunset, and the beau- 
tiful Westhampton church -spire peer- 
ing up above its sylvan and green 
surroundings ; but I have not seen in 
this quarter any pyrotechnics or fire- 
works, material or metaphorical or ora- 
torical. Some men may tell me they 
spend as much time upon their ser- 
mons without the writinQ^ as others 
do with it. To such I would not say 
bluntly, " You lie ! " but more blandly 
I would put it, " My dear, good friend, 
I very much want to believe you ; 
I would if I could ; but, pardon 
me, I can't and don't." All honor 
to this people and their pastors 



224 Remarks at Centennial. 

for their choice and custom in this 
matter. 

Forty or more young men from this 
little Bethlehem Judah, getting a lib- 
eral education, and gone forth to bless 
the world ! Come the wise man and 
the scribe, and tell me how this is ? 
How otherwise, than through a Chris- 
tian church and a Christian ministry, 
in long and bright succession — min- 
isters, godly men, faithful in all their 
house, sound in doctrine, pure in life, 
feeding the flock — the sheep and the 
lambs — zealous, prudent, patient, con- 
tented ; loving all and loving much, and 
highly esteemed for their works' sake ; 
" as unknown, yet well known ; as sor- 
rowful, yet always rejoicing ; as poor, 
yet making many rich;" "bringing 
many sons unto glory," and then 



Remarks at Centennial. 2 25 

themselves receiving the glorious 
crown. " Happy is that people that 
is in such a case ; yea, happy is that 
people whose God is the Lord." 



15 



READ BEFORE THE CONGREGA- 
TIONAL CLUB AT GREENFIELD. 

What were the influences or agen- 
cies inducing men to enter the minis- 
try a generation ago ? 

I shall not, I trust, be held too 
rigidly to the question. There is a 
negative side. There is a compara- 
tive view. I stipulated for freedom in 
consenting to write. 

First and chief of those influen- 
ces or agencies. Home and home life as 
then. Parental yearnings and train- 
ings. Children not turned off upon 
Sabbath-school, as the manner of 
some is. Parental hearts and hopes, 
and prayers, that one of the many chil- 



Read at Greenfield. 227 

dren in the family — there were the 
many in those days — might be a 
minister. Mother at home, her seat 
and throne, best university in the 
world ; her love and care and looks 
and lips ; her high hope and low 
whisper that little towhead Jamie at 
her knee might some day be a great 
and good minister. A half-dozen such 
favored homes, and then, at school 
near by, 

" A little bench of heedless bishops here, 
And there a chancellor in embryo." 

Ambition, say you ? Put up thy 
sword ; also thy microscope. We are 
blessedly human, the best of us : cer- 
tainly so when casting in our hearts 
what manner of man, or minister, this 
wonderful child of ours is to be. So, 



2 28 Read at Greenfield. 

anciently, Hannah lending her Samuel 
to the Lord. Elizabeth, hiding her- 
self five months, and keeping up the 
while a mighty thinking. Mary, 
keeping all these things, and ponder- 
ing them in her heart — and perhaps 
she didn't keep them very closely, 
either. 

The ministers of our long ago — 
whence came they ? Chiefly from the 
nursery and snuggery of such Chris- 
tian homes. Dedication of children 
to God ; the sign and seal ; the vows, 
and prayers, and tears ; parents and 
children together in the same cove- 
nant and holy bonds. It is what used 
to be heard almost invariably from 
candidates in their examination for the 
pastoral office, " My mother said and 
did thus and so." 



Read at Greenjield. 229 

2. Let us turn now from the home 
to the house of God. Not the great- 
est distance between. 'Y\i^ preaching, 
a generation ago, Gospel preaching ; 
doctrinal, practical, plain, pungent, and 
pressed home : a something that set 
one pondering his wicked way, and 
turning from it ; that went to the 
heart, and fixed itself there ; that 
set one asking, with Saul of Tarsus : 
" Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do ? " — that made a man take and 
keep for his motto, Conscience and 
Christ. Those great preachers, Fin- 
ney, Nettleton, Burchard, Foote, 
Lindsley, Humphrey, Hewitt, Hawes, 
Lyman Beecher, N. W. Taylor, Ben- 
net Tyler, Thomas H. Skinner, Joel 
Parker, and Edward N. Kirk — I have 
heard them all, and do well remember 



230 Read at Greenfield. 

their trend and drift. The sinner, 
self-destroyed, ruined, utterly undone; 
himself helpless, and his case utterly 
hopeless, except as God in his sover- 
eign, free, electing love, may see fit to 
reach down his mighty arm and pluck 
him as a brand. Sinai first, then 
Calvary. There was the dying when 
the commandment came. By the 
terrors of the Lord men were per- 
suaded. Nettleton's Village Hymns — 
" Awaked by Sinai's awful sound." 
The storm seen gathering, and the 
fleeing as a bird to your mountain. 
The sinner, trembling and almost de- 
spairing, and driven as well as drawn 
to seek and find in Christ the one and 
only Hiding-place. Darkest just be- 
fore day. Penitential sorrow. Bow 
on the cloud, of light, indeed, but of 



Read at Gree7ijield. 231 

rain-drops also. The drops of grief 
before the light of smiles. The law 
our schoolmaster, and the law-work 
thorough. The fallow ground broken 
up, ploughed deeply, moistened, made 
mellow ; and now a garden of spices, 
plants of righteousness, strongest vir- 
tues, sweetest graces — humility and 
holy zeal. Such a Rescue, and there- 
fore now the glad and thankful con- 
secration to God and his service. 
None the less in those days the invit- 
ing voices, the sweet sounds — never 
were sweeter — but carefully in their 
due place and order. After the fire, 
the gentle, soft sound, as Tholuck 
translates it. 

Now the point and proof. In- 
stance : that revival in Yale Collegfe in 
i830-'3i ; the depth and power, the 



232 Read at Greenfield. 

passionate longing and pleading for 
pardon and peace with God ; and such 
numbers — undergraduates, tutors, and 
law-students — devoting themselves 
then and there to the ministerial 
calling. So in my native town in Ver- 
mont — seven hundred inhabitants — 
revival in 1826, fifty conversions; 
pungent convictions, great search- 
ings of heart, the surrender and 
rescue, the daring to hope, the still- 
ness and chastened joy ; and of those 
fifty converts seven in no long time 
were found in our academies and col- 
leges on their way to the Christian 
ministry. You might have supposed 
the good issue. It is in God's plan 
and method. It is a deep philosophy. 
It is plain law of cause and effect. It 
is Scripture — loving much because for- 



Read at Greenfield. 233 

given much. It is song — loving Him 
who first loved me. 

But again, "3, as to the viiiiistry 
itself- — the high estimation in which it 
was held, and of which in good part it 
was worthy. In more senses than one 
the calling was a high calling. The 
pulpits were high. The minister 
was the eminent man among a people ; 
was the one educated man amongr 
most peoples ; was revered, consulted, 
deferred to ; was oracle and umpire ; 
held the fort by a sort of divine 
right; was called a divi7ie ; was divine, 
in the Unitarian sense of divine ; 
heard, as others did, the high-sound- 
ing cymbals, ''venerandi ac reverandi.'^ 
Something of a prize to be coveted, 
such a place and position among men ; 
something of a goal of honor for you, 



234 Read at Greenjield. 

perhaps, if, a little aspiring, you would 
attain unto what Dr. Cox would have 
called " the height of conspicuity." 
Fortunately, or providentially, rather, 
there was among the young men, 
fresh from the revivals, the experi- 
ences and consecrations we have 
spoken of, a piety that could and did, 
in good measure at least, resist the 
temptations to arrogance and pride, 
and putting on of airs — albeit the tin- 
sel and trappings of an earlier time, 
the knee-buckles and powdered hair, 
those prime essentials of dignity and 
gravity — not to say sanctity — had not 
yet quite faded from mortal vision. 
The Parson and Divine. It is quite 
conceivable that a g-ood man and hum- 
ble may covet earnestly a high posi- 
tion as affording him the better field 



Read at Greenfield. 235 

and freedom to serve God and his 
generation. Certain it is, the young 
man, looking to the ministry in those 
early days, was regarded as worthily 
aspiring to place himself upon such 
vantage-ground. " This is a true say- 
ing, If a man desire the office of 
a bishop, he desireth a good work." 
Channing and Emerson agreed in 
calling the ministry the finest of all 
the professions. 

4. The ministry in those days was 
held to be the post and place for emi- 
nent tcsefulness. If you want to do 
great things for the Master, be 
a minister. Mr. By-Ends and Mr. 
Money-Love didn't edge up to you 
with their soft suggestion, that you 
could be just as good a man, and do 
just as much good in the world, in some 



236 Read at Greenfield. 

other sphere of Hfe, in some shorter, 
easier, cheaper means and methods — 
Christian Associations, temperance 
work. Sabbath-school, and personal 
effort. There were not then these 
open doors, or they were not known 
and recognized as now. William E. 
Dodge, cultivating, as he has done, a 
vast and varied field of Christian ac- 
tivities, would, in the earlier time, have 
been looked upon as little better or 
other than a picturesque anachronism 
— out of time, place, propriety, proph- 
ecy, or possibility — a somewhat of a 
sort with the man's conjecture that, in 
killing Abel, Cain must have obtained 
from Hartford, Conn., one of Colt's 
revolvers. No. Instead, one highway, 
cast up and prepared, a royal road, a 
king's highway for you, if you would 



Read at Greenfield. 237 

work and win — strike for the goal and 
the prize — be a minister and preach 
the Gospel. 

Well now, a young Christian in the 
early time ; his conscience and conse- 
cration and good impulse. Can he 
attain to the sacred office ? Should 
he attempt it ? Some things will ever- 
more seem adverse ; perhaps strait- 
ened means ; state of family ; time of 
life ; long toil of preparation ; long 
waiting ; perhaps lady waiting ; advice 
to the contrary ; uncertainty of suc- 
cess ; burdens of work and care in the 
ministry ; impulse to cut across lots, or 
climb up some other way — some one 
or more of these ready at all times to 
hinder and dissuade. 

I. Wanted then, as ever, an edu- 
cated ministry. 



238 Read at Greenfield. 

2. Such education, at the easiest, 
costs not a little. 

3. By far the greater number in the 
ministry and adorning it are not from 
the rich — there luere not the rich then 
as now — but from families of humbler 
means, — perhaps no means at all, ex- 
cept their riches in Christ. It has al- 
ways been so, and will be in this land. 

Now, our young aspirant of forty or 
fifty years ago. Many things favored 
his wish and choice. Parents will toil 
and economize to carry their dear boy 
through and up to a place so honora- 
ble, useful, and sure. The Education 
Society, a new thing and admirable, 
with Dr. Cornelius and Professor B. 
B. Edwards, rare men, with magnetic 
force to push its work, brings its offers 
and appeals, and throws into the ques- 



Read at Gree7ijield. 239 

tion a moral and material weight 
which, all things considered, it has 
not done since, nor can again. Ex- 
pense of education comparatively 
small. Boy and family have not been 
frightened at hearing of college clubs 
and crews and contests, journeys, re- 
gattas, class-suppers, and secret socie- 
ties, etc. — those abominations that 
make desolate. The times, not of 
telegraphs and rushing haste, but 
more patient and plodding, slow and 
sensible. Ten years not then so very 
long a time for getting ready to 
preach. Boy from plough, loom, or 
anvil, in happy ignorance of luxurious 
living ; had never crossed the Plain of 
Ease, nor seen Vanity Fair, except 
in Bunyan. Boy inured to toil, 
and could endure hardness. William 



240 Read at Greenfield. 

Goodell, on foot from Templeton to An- 
dover, with trunk strapped to his back, 
thereby gaining his bent form, a mark 
of honor which he could well afford to 
carry with him through life, as good 
old Jacob could his lameness, after 
having beaten that angel at wrestling. 
Boy and family have not had their 
eyes dazzled to blindness by visions of 
sudden wealth. Boy and family have 
not had their zeal frozen nor chilled 
by scepticisms, suggesting doubts 
whether this much ado about saving 
men in the present life and present 
probation, be, after all, so needful and 
wise. Haven't heard disheartening 
talk about the exacting demands of 
the age — ^how a minister must under- 
stand all mysteries, must know every- 
thing, and be everything and every- 



Read at Greenfield. 241 

where — must be Stuart, Woolsey, 
McCosh, and Chadbourne, all in one 
— pastor, teacher, and evangelist, all 
in one. Haven't heard a hue and cry 
about a surphis of ministers — a cry 
eagerly caught up in a later day, and 
sounded along the tribes from Beer- 
sheba even unto Dan : a great multi- 
tude of impotent folk at the Pool of 
Bethesda, or at a ministerial bureau of 
Boston, waiting for an angel to come 
down and put them in ; or, a trial 
almost as humiliating, the walking 
through dry places, seeking rest, and 
finding none. Haven't read the para- 
ble, how sixty men took cars from 
Springfield for Boston ; got out at 
each of twelve stations, and were 
counted over again — the same sixty, 

every time — and how, on arriving at 
16 



242 Read at Greenfield. 

Boston, the identical sixty had become 
seven hundred and twenty — a great 
surplus of ministers ! Haven't seen, 
week after week, a Monday's New 
York daily, showing how pestered 
and puzzled and perplexed a score of 
ministers have been to find or frame a 
something to preach upon, and enter- 
tain, and draw; and how, in their 
straits, they did, yesterday, preach 
science, ethics, esthetics, culture, the 
most advanced thought, marriage and 
divorce, sphere of woman, moral re- 
forms, evolution, every thing, almost, 
except the Gospel of God's love and 
grace to dying men — or, as Mrs. Part- 
ington has it, " Dispensed with the 
Gospel." And, finally, the boy and 
friends haven't been told, to their 
amazement, that the average time of a 



Read at Greenfield. 243 

minister in one place and pastorate is 
about three and a half years ; then the 
breaking up, and tearing up, and a 
removal to — who shall tell him where ? 

No. The boy in those days, and 
yearning to preach the Gospel, was 
happily exempt from most of these 
and the like dissuasives. The aspects 
and prospects were brighter — in these 
regards at least. There were not seen 
in those days these so many things of 
a contrary part to dampen and depress 
a youthful and Christian ardor. 

Boy up there at his work, and with 
his theme and hope : and so he walks 

" in glory and in joy- 
Behind his plough upon the mountain side." 

He is thinking — thinking what to do 
— what he can and ought. He can 



244 Read at Greenjield. 

think. The Isolation and stillness help 
him. He is not interrupted, and 
thrown off the track on both sides at 
once. He hears no railroad whistle. 
He sees no excursion train. He is 
not diverted to day-dreams about 
sociables and suppers and picnics, 
and festivals and concerts and lect- 
ures. He can think on and clear 
through to resolve. " Stillness ! " But 
there is nnisic ; the air Is full of it. 
Electrical currents, inspiration, up-lift, 
impulsion. Those wonderful revivals^ 
and their baptism upon him. And 
missions, new, strange, wonderful. 
And Macedonian cries, and glad re- 
sponses to them. The mountains la- 
bored, and brought forth men and mis- 
sionaries : Pliny Fisk of Shelburne, 
Jonas King of Hawley, William 



Read at Greenfield. 245 

Goodell of Templeton, and other 
Christian heroes, of Hke precious faith. 
The spectacle, as then looked upon : 
young men taking their lives in their 
hands, bidding farewell to kindred and 
country, cheerfully consenting to bear 
all the great perils and privations of a 
life in heathen lands, and, not least, 
never to return, never, no, never. And 
the Calebs were heard saying, " Let us 
go up at once, and possess it ; for we 
are able to overcome it." . Peter Par- 
ker for China ; and the walls there to 
fall immediately, were they not, as 
those of Jericho had done. That grand 
man, Rev. Leonard Bacon, as you 
might have seen and heard him fifty 
years ago. Look into his face, shin- 
ing as it had been the face of an angel, 
while, in notes almost divine, he sings : 



246 Read at Greenfield. 

" See the glory-beaming star. 

Traveller ! yes, it brings the day, 

Promised day of Israel." 

Hear Dr. Griffin, closing his mis- 
sionary sermon with ecstasies and 
transports : — " I see, I see," etc., and 

" Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." 

Had not the millennium already 
dawned ? 

The situation as then ; the field, the 
calls. Would not the young man, 
loving and yearning, and come to the 
kingdom at such a time, respond, 
Here am I; send me? I think he 
would. I think he did. 

May an old man, in closing, say a 
word personal to himself ? The min- 
isterial brethren — I love them more 



Read at Greenfield. 247 

and more as the years come and go, 
and more highly esteem them for their 
worth and work's sake. If I might go 
back, and choose my way of Hfe again, 
I would choose the Christian ministry, 
as preferable by far to anything else 
this world could offer me. I should 
like right well to do my life-work over 
again, and would do it better next 
time, God helping me. - I think I 
would. 



FIRST LETTER FROM THE ISLES OF 
SHOALS. 

Appledore House, 
Isles of Shoals, N. H., July 23, 1879. 

Something of a transition from 
northwestern Vermont, on Lake Cham- 
plain, to this island, east from main- 
land, out on the sea. And how to get 
here. Take cars at Boston, on the 
Eastern Railroad ; two hours' ride, 
through Chelsea, Revere, Lynn, Bev- 
erly, Ipswich, Rowley, Newburyport, 
and Hampton, N. H., to Portsmouth ; 
then a steamer, ten miles east by 
southeast into the ocean, and you 
are landed on this island of rocks — 
the largest of several equally rocky. 



Isles of Shoals. 249 

Odd place, you say ; and so it is. 
Rocks to orrass as ten to one. One 
hundred acres, and upon them four 
calves, and not a sheep. The tradi- 
tional New Hampshire sharpening of 
the sheeps' noses would hardly keep 
the creatures here above starvation. 
No sea-beach here ; the huge waves 
beat against the ledges. No surf sea- 
bathing here — water too cold. There 
is somewhat of j-////-water bathing in 
two large ponds. Into these the 
water at high tide is let in, and is 
then kept in, by closing of gates, as in 
the locks of a canal, till the water is 
sufficiently sun-warmed for bathing. 

You are ready to ask, What is there 
here to attract visitors from city and 
country ? Very much — specially to 
those seeking health and invigoration. 



256 Isles of Shoals, 

The sea all around — "mighty mon- 
archy of waters " — the tonic breezes, 
the coolness, the wildness, the waves, 
and the fishing ; and this last, 
you, Mr. Editor, would very likely 
place at the head of the list. One 
more, and chief of the attractions to 
many, a finer Hotel than can be found 
elsewhere on or near these eastern 
shores. Kept by the Laighton Broth- 
ers, who were trained to the busi- 
ness, and inherited the property, the 
island entire, from their father, who 
died several years since. This Hotel, 
besides cottages, has three main 
buildings, the largest in the centre, all 
in range, separated by narrow spaces 
laterally, and united in front, west- 
ward, by a common and continuous 
piazza, five hundred feet long. The 



Isles of Shoals. 251 

dining-hall will seat, comfortably, four 
hundred at once. It is a first-class 
house, and will compare favorably, as 
to table and its appointments, with the 
" United States" and "Grand Union " 
in Saratoga. You would say so, were 
I to send you a bill of fare. Prices 
nearly the same in this as in those. 
Buildings not so gorgeous, yet quite 
sightly and comfortable. Best of beds 
and bedding. Sixty rocking-chairs on 
front piazza, besides one in each bed- 
room. Abundance of sofas for loung- 
ing and lolling. A full complement 
and variety of fixings and furnishings 
for ease, comfort, pleasure, and profit, 
also, if you will. Bible in every bed- 
room. Billiard-saloon, bowling-alley, 
ball-room, band of music, and bar — 
this last in the rear basement. I have 



252 Isles of Shoals. 

not seen it, please. There is, I think, 
very little of rum-drinking here. I 
have seen none, nor the effects or 
signs. The island lies off against 
both Maine and New Hampshire, and 
as to liquor-laws, is, perhaps, amenable 
to neither. The rooms are generously 
supplied with books. Newspapers, 
writing-desks, paper and envelopes, 
all free, and as much as you will. 
Theatre and concert-room, chapel 
and hymn-books. No expense spared. 
No pinching of image and super- 
scription out of a penny. No at- 
tempt to solve the problem of how 
much to get from how little of giving, 
or how to fleece most with feeding 
least. The most courteous and oblig- 
ing of landlords, intent to meet, and, 
if possible, anticipate your every 



Isles of Skoals. 253 

want or wish. Servants and service 
in the dining-room the best. Small 
table, and a trained waiter at each. 
The two head-waiters young men, the 
rest Yankee girls — the comeliest-look- 
ing set to be found in any dining- 
room in America, so says my neighbor 
mess-mate enthusiastically and truth- 
fully. And yotc would say it. I didn't 
mention card-tables and playing. 
While I am writing this, a dozen men 
— United States Senator Thurman, of 
Ohio, so likely to be our next president, 
perhaps, among them — are playing at 
whist in the room next me. We have 
a steamer from Portsmouth twice a 
day, bringing mails from Boston, New 
York, etc. To find yourself, of an 
evening, reading the New York morn- 
ing papers of the same day, away so 



254 Isles of Shoals. 

far down east on the great and wide 
sea ! What marvels ! What a contrast 
to things old and vanished ! The first 
mail-carrier between Washington and 
Boston was placed under bonds to 
achieve the distance in fourteen 
days ! Now the pace of as many 
hours is too lax and lagging. Shall a 
man yet come to be so hasty and swift 
as to run away from his shadow and 
himself ? 

And our coi'.tpmty, at this hotel, now 
three hundred. They are from far 
and near — St. Louis, Chicago, Phila- 
delphia, New York, and many another 
place. They are of the choicest. The 
solid men of Boston are here in large 
force, representing millions in wealth 
— solid men and solid women — the 
latter specially so, some of them 



Isles of Shoals, 255 

freighting into the hundreds. The 
Boston ton and upper-crust are here — 
real gentle-folk — courteous, affable, 
simple and natural in mien and man- 
ner; no starchiness and "stuck up," 
and putting on of airs, as in the 
Saratogian shoddy from New York. 
Dresses plain. No long trains, either 
of cars or clothes. Dress as you 
please. Free and easy. Never a 
more agreeable set. The coarse and 
rough, the pushing and pretentious, 
are not here. Would they were no- 
where. 

We have preaching services on Sab- 
bath, the last by Dr. Peabody, of 
Harvard University. He gave us an 
excellent discourse. Nearly all the 
visitors were in attendance. Do you 
ask how we while away the time ? 



256 Isles of Shoals. 

Plenty of ways. Now the band. 
Now songs by the best Boston voices. 
Now a ramble on the rocks, and then 
a sitting on the water's edge, to see 
the monster waves swell and surge 
and break at your feet, and the 
whitening sails off at sea. And, in 
the evenings, to look off landward, 
and see the government light-houses 
on a lonof stretch of shore. And then 
the chat and stories, and the arrival of 
steamer with mail, and letters from 
home, and papers ; and the evening in 
your room, and reading by best of 
gaslight ; and the breakfasts and din- 
ners and teas ; and then — speak it 
softly — the splendid fishing, and 
plenty of luck ! Have been out at it 
two forenoons. Am not an expert, 
but can lose my bait, and get the hook 



Isles of Shoals. 267 

into my fingers, and miss getting the 
fellow up and out, as fast and often as 
the very adepts. And the sun and 
these winds, to put a new face upon 
you, for better or worse — mines 
several shades nearer to — well, I will 
not slander the Africans, nor the 
Indians, either. Every one in his own 
order and color — Mr. White, Mr. 
Brown, Mr. Purple, Mr. Beach, and 
myself just now somewhere in "the 
middle extreme." I don't like fishing. 
It involves the giving of too much 
needless and profitless pain to creat- 
ures that won't harm you, and can't 
resent nor protest. I am ready to say 
of fishing for mere sport as Cowper 
says of hunting : 

" Detested sport, 
That owes its pleasure to another's pain." 
17 



2 58 Isles of Shoals. 

If I wanted the food, that might ex- 
cuse. I do not read that Peter and 
Andrew fished for the fun of it. And 
they used the net, and not the hook. 
SentimentaHsm ! some one says. Let 
him say it. " I, also, will give mine 
opinion." 

You may think we suffer here from 
the cold. No, sir. Over-coat in morn- 
ings, if needs be, with exercise, and 
good wood fires in open grates in half 
the evenings. Out in the open air 
freely, with or without head-gear, and 
clad less warmly or more, and yet not 
one among all the three hundred 
guests has a cold. The salt air ac- 
counts for this. You couldn't begin to 
bear the equal exposures on land with 
the like impunity. The air is bracing. 
You must stir about. No one here 
complains of the cold. No one is set 



Isles of Shoals. 269 

to shivering and teeth-chattering, or is 
thrown into the slough of " Oh, dear 
Buzzes." Marvellous stories are told 
of the health-lifting here in some in- 
stances. Six pounds gained in one 
week by an in-landsman who came 
here a week ago, pale, stooping, and 
wheezing heavily. Bethesda — but the 
pool is larger. 

One week here. We, brother and 
myself, propose, D. V., to start a week 
from to-morrow for a week at Nan- 
tucket, not for a better place, but for 
another and variety, and soon home, 
we hope — home and friends. "No 
place like home." No play so 
pleasant as work. No friends so 
beautiful as one's own — as mine to 
me. And so, as my good friends from 
the Emerald Isle would say, " The top 
of the morning to you." 



SECOND LETTER FROM THE ISLES 
OF SHOALS. 

Appledore House, 
Isles of Shoals, August i6, 1883. 

With a little time and pains-taking 
curiosity one may find a good deal of 
real interest in this group of islands. 
Since writing you last I have been 
ramblinof over " Star Island," a few 
minutes' sail south of our Appledore. 
In a religious point of view, I think 
the "Star" must have stood eminent 
above the other islands — six in all — 
eight in low tide. Standing up on 
high ground, or rather rock, is a little 
church, " pointing with taper spire to 
heaven " — little used now, but having 



Isles of Shoals. 261 

a history. On the north outside, in- 
serted in the wall, is a marble tablet 
with this inscription : 

" GospoRT Church. 

Originally constructed of timbers from 
the wreck of a Spanish ship, a.d. 1685. 
Was rebuilt in 1720, and burned by 
the islanders in 1790. This building 
of stone was erected in 1800." Re- 
liable tradition says that eight of the 
wrecked men were buried near by. 
This building — very strong — walls 
nearly three feet in thickness, of heavy 
stones and carefully laid, is neatly 
kept. Plain benches, with backs — 
twenty-four in number — these with 
pulpit and platform of the same wood, 
two chairs, straight-backed and cane- 
seated — the whole painted in deep 



262 Isles of Shoals, 

red — darker now for age. Once in a 
while a preaching service is held there. 

Farther south, on this island, is the 
graveyard in which ''the rude fore- 
fathers of the hamlet sleep." Two of 
the graves are marked by large sand- 
stone slabs, resting on piles of stones, 
matching them in size and shape as 
well as a rude but reverent masonry 
could be looked to do such work. One 
of the stones bears the name of Josiah 
Stephens. Died July 2, 1804. 

On the other stone is the name of 
"John Tucke, graduate of Harvard in 
1728; ordained July 26, 1732; died 
here, August 12, 1773." The memorial 
words over these two are singularly 
affectionate and grateful ; the closing 
line over Mr. Tucke, saying of him, 
that he was " A careful physician, both 



Isles of Shoals, 263 

of the bodies and souls of his people. 
In memory of the just." 

The rest of the graves have bould- 
ers for headstones, with no traceable 
inscriptions ; only here and there a 
stone can be distinguished as noting 
the sleeping-place of one who was 
once, perhaps, a prince of the people 
here — perhaps " the manliest of ye 
all." A few more years, and these 
rude stones will give the stranger or a 
dweller here no sign to distinguish the 
" inches few " where the generations 
here have their sleeping-places — " the 
last of earth." 

Overlooking the sea, at the extreme 
south end of the island, is a monument 
on a granite pedestal, in memory of 
"John Smith, who was Governor of 
Virginia, and Admiral of New Eng- 



264 Isles of Shoals, 

land. Was born in Willoughby, 
England, in 1579; died in London 
in 163 1." "These islands, properly- 
called Smith's Islands, were discovered 
by him in April, 16 14, while, with 
eight others, in an open vessel, he 
was exploring the coast from the Pe- 
nobscot to Cape Cod. Vincere est 
vivere^ 

A little way west of this, and over- 
hanging the sea, is another tablet, 
telling a story less grand, maybe, but 
more touching and tragic. Clamber- 
ing with care part way down the beet- 
ling ledge, you find, pendent against a 
perpendicular wall of rock, with a 
something like a rocky seat beneath, a 
board three feet square, painted, and 
inscribed (the work carefully done in 
paint) with these words : 



Isles of Shoals. 265 

" Miss Underhill's Chair. 
Miss N. J. Underhill, for two years 
teacher of the youth on Star Island, 
was dashed by the waves from this 
rock, and was drowned, September ii, 
1848, and was much lamented by this 
people." 

I should add, that the sea must 
have been at the topmost of its " rag- 
ing " to reach her at that height ; for, 
though down some way from the top, 
the " chair" is still high above the sea's 
usual reachings. 

One of the most touching things 
I have met with at the Shoals is a 
private burial spot, perhaps twenty 
feet square, inclosed in a wooden, 
picket railing — the work said to have 
been done by the father, Rev. Mr. 
Beebe, with his own hands — covered 



266 Isles of Shoals. 

all over now with a thick growth of 
shrub willows ; a dell scooped out in 
shape of a bowl ; gate shut and 
locked ; yet a something is there 
which the inclosure cannot, or does 
not, keep from human feet and eyes 
and hearts. Getting over the fence, as 
others have done before me (I was 
alone), and stooping my way along 
under and through a tangle of willow 
branches, I reached the centre and 
lowest point of the plat, and there 
found, what is almost hidden from an 
outside viewer, a monument of finest 
marble, four square, tapering slightly, 
six feet or more in height, and resting 
on a granite plinth. At the base of 
this column (on all sides, I think) is 
the name Beebe. In a row, on the 
east side of the ground, are three small 



Isles of Shoals, 267 

headstones, perhaps eighteen inches 
high, with the names of those and all 
who have been buried there. Turning 
back now to the column, and tracing 
one side of it from top downward, 
you read : 

"Jessie. Died May 30, 1863, aged 
two years. 

"You are, dear child, ' far, far away,' 
Yet near in spirit, too ; 
Welcome indeed will be the day 
That brings us all to you." 

"Millie. Died June 12, 1863, 
aged four years. Dying, she kneeled 
down and prayed, ' Please, Jesus, take 
me up to the light place.' And he 
did." 

" MiTTiE. Died June 23, 1863, 
aged seven years. ' I don't want to 



268 Isles of Shoals. 

die, but I'll do just as Jesus wants me 
to. 

Let the reader note the above 
dates. On inquiry, I learn that the 
parents, and so the whole family, have 
passed. Mr. Beebe was greatly be- 
loved in his labors on these islands. 
The parents died and were buried else- 
where. 

What volumes, unwritten, except in 
God's book of life and love, do those 
few memorial words imply ! What 
mysteries of Providence — "a great 
deep," "deep in unfathomable mines," 
''deep as the boundless sea." What 
sorrows and tears ! What hopes, that 
cannot be crushed, or '' crushed to 
earth, will rise again." Standing, or 
rather stooping, there, and tracing 
those few simple lines, and letting 



Isles of Shoals, 269 

fancy fill up the story as well as it 1 

could — poorly at best — there came * 

with unwonted power to my heart 

those blessed words of Jesus, " Suffer 

the little children to come unto me, 

and forbid them not : for of such is the 3 

kingdom of Heaven." 



A SERMON ON THE POWER OF 
HABIT.* 

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his 
spots ? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed 
to do evil. — Jer. xiii. 23. 

In Scripture, and in our common 
speech, there are two " cannots " : 
one, meaning the want of power ; the 
other, the want of will. I "cannot" 
lift a mountain — I haven't the power : 
I " cannot " do this or that thing 
you ask of me — I am unwilling to 
do it ; it is against my way of think- 
ing, my principles, my habits, my cir- 
cumstances and convenience. The 

* This discourse was written with no thought of pub- 
lication. It is inserted here at the particular request of 
friends. 



The Power of Habit. 271 

Ethiopian "cannot" change his skin; 
it is impossible to him ; it is against 
nature. A man accustomed to do evil 
"cannot" cease from it; he has no 
heart to stop and turn ; a habit upon 
him holds him to the wrong. 

I am to speak of the habits we form, 
and which form us to good or evil. 

The law of habit is a pervading law 
of man, and runs through all the ele- 
ments of his life, as do the arteries 
and veins in his animal make. We see 
its operation in the little things of our 
everyday life — things of the body, the 
mind, the heart. It is a great achieve- 
ment when an infant for the first time 
toddles across the floor ! What a glee 
the little hero has and gives, and how 
he repeats the act from very exuber- 
ance of delight ! He is a Columbus, 



272 The Power of Habit, 

discovering a continent. The first 
steps of going alone ! Was ever 
wonder greater ? But, grown to man- 
hood, he makes whole journeys in 
almost utter unconsciousness of any 
act of the will, without which a single 
step cannot be taken. So of one's 
gait in walking — peculiarities of atti- 
tude and motion, bend of the head, or 
swing of an arm. 

Thus it is with bodily habits — they 
cling to us — -they are part of us — a 
second nature. Your hand-writing — 
yours — recognized and accepted as 
yours, whether found in the hasty note 
of to-day, or in your last will and 
testament. 

Now, the spiritual in man is far 
more susceptible to influences giving 
us a fixed moral form and pressure. 



The Power of Habit, 273 

A mere dream leaves on you a shadow 
which it takes you days, perhaps 
weeks, to shake off. '' Only a dream." 
True ; but that something stays long 
in spite of your philosophy. 

Of these our habits, then, I remark : 
I. They are necessarily formed. The 
question is not of whether, but of 
what. Habits of some sort you must 
form — you are forming, every day. 
You couldn't help it if you would. It 
is a law in our make and mouldine. It 
belongs inherently to all action, all 
growth, all life. That child on the 
floor — boy, with two old shoes for 
oxen, or girl with doll or kitten — will, 
with admirable ambition and enter- 
prise, repeat an effort fifty times to fix 
that thing just right. You wouldn't 

repress this zeal in that child, your 

18 



2 74 ^-^^ Power of Habit. 

child, noise or none of it. You might 
be. destroying a roll of grand prophecy 
if you did. You might be undoing 
the miracle of a tired mother's great 
love and great hope. The child is 
reaching up for excellence — is follow- 
ing after, if that he may apprehend. 
He is in college already, and is learn- 
ing faster than most college students 
do. 

So of all experimenting. So of all 
apprenticeships in arts and trades. So 
of learning to play on an organ or 
piano — this going over and over a 
thing, till practice brings facility, mas- 
tery, perfection. It is something very 
wonderful and instructive, this pluck 
and patience and persistence through 
years and years to reach our palms 
and prizes. 



The Power of Habit. 275 

Nor one habit alone. The forming 
of one renders easy and probable the 
forminof of other and kindred habits. 
One virtue introduces a whole sister- 
hood of virtues, as the evening star 
leads the nightly train. One vice en- 
folds a whole brood of vipers. Lying 
or profanity is the Trojan horse, enter- 
ing a city to destroy it. You look 
upon the swearing boy as bad already, 
perhaps all through. 

2. Our habits are early formed — in 
great part in childhood and youth. 
Then is the nature most impressible 
and most flexible. Then we take our 
shape and color. Then are the soft 
clay and bird-tracks, which men of a 
thousand years afterward shall be 
looking upon with wondering eyes. 
You cannot bend nor straighten an 



276 The Power of Habit. 

old tree to your fancy. You must 
begin with the sapling and tender 
plant. " Just as the twig is bent, the 
tree's inclined." " Train up a child 
in the way he should go, and when he 
is old he will not depart from it." Oh ! 
the boon of a Christian home ! The 
parental love, and care, and counsel, 
the prayers, the Scripture reading, and 
the songs of praise ! The silken cords, 
the sweet captivity, holding you to the 
right and true and good. Not often 
is a young man, all right at twenty, 
found afterward flying from his orbit, 
and swinging blind amid storms of 
error and profligacy. A good set- 
ting out in life, we all say, is vastly 
momentous. Oh ! how many his- 
tories tell us that our early life is 
formative and determinative ! Then 



The Power of Habit. 277 

is the spring-time, and the seed- 
sowing. 

3. Our habits are silently and imper- 
ceptibly formed. Much as in the great 
forces of nature. The sun and stars 
move in silent procession. So with 
electricity, and magnetism, and gravita- 
tion — mighty forces, and marvellous in 
their effects, but giving no sound. The 
thunder is noise, but is harmless ; the 
lightning is silent, but rends the moun- 
tain. The ocean cable stirs no ripple. 
You stand in a forest, and think of the 
great miracle going on in silence 
round you — that forest growth ! and 

" The sound of dropping nuts is heard. 
While all the trees are still." 

Or the grain-field in June — marvellous 
that process, the growth and ripening, 



278 The Power of Habit. 

but there is no sound. Your clock 
ticks off the moments for you : it is 
the clock, not the moments, that you 
hear. 

*' We take no note of time, but from its loss." 

Much so, my friends, is it with our 
habits — a silent growth and proces- 
sion. They steal upon us like a thief 
in the night. They creep with soft, 
velvety step. They take us unawares. 
That unguarded youth is all uncon- 
scious of the malign work going on 
in him : not a suspicion that he is 
forging chains and fetters with which 
the Philistines shall some day make 
him grind in their prison-house, and 
use him for their sport. It is a sap- 
ping and mining in the dark, at the 
seat and citadel of life — of all that 



The Power of Habit. 2 79 

makes life worth living. Putting that 
poison-cup to his lips — not a thought 
that he could ever be a slave to the 
drink-fiend. Not he ; no, never, nor 
possibility of it. " Why, man alive, do 
you think I am not my own master ? " 
But you see him afterward — and 
how changed ! how the demon has 
him, and mocks his groans and tears. 
Is this fiction ? I wish it were. But 
no ; it is just what you and I have seen 
and sorrowed over — the young, and 
beautiful, and strong, broken, wrecked, 
slain upon their high places — sunk to 
depths from which we never see him 
rise. " Died he not as the fool 
dieth?" 

4. Habits are rapidly formed. 
Though silent and unperceived, the 
process hastens to its issue. The bird 



28o The Power of Habit. 

hasteth to the snare. There are " feet 
that be swift in running to mischief." 
There is, indeed, a diversity here, as 
in nature elsewhere. There is in 
botany the century plant. There is in 
sacred history a Jonah's gourd. It 
was miracle. But there is something 
very like the miraculous in the swift- 
ness with which vice sometimes leaps 
to its goal in shame and sorrow. 
There are coral islands which in- 
sects have been centuries in building. 
But islands have, in one hour, been 
heaved up from the ocean's bed. Men 
for ages have been repeating the Latin 
poet's saying : " The descent to hell 
is easy." Our down-grades give rapid 
travelling. You have seen a young 
man go down as it were by a bound, 
from apparent virtuousness, into a 



The Power of Habit. 281 

depth of villany, where none could 
look upon him, except with mingled 
pity and loathing. Probably the bitter 
waters, which you saw come to the 
surface, had for some distance been 
coursing their way underground. The 
tree which the wind blows over is 
found to have rottenness at the root. 
Very likely the process of degeneracy 
and decline is usually more laborious 
and gradual than it appears to be, to 
one looking at its sad issue. Many a 
one has to dig and delve to reach the 
lower deeps. " The wages of sin is 
death " — that is, if you want perdition 
you must work for it ; but the gift of 
God is eternal life — that is, if you 
want salvation you can have it as 
God's free gift, through Jesus Christ. 
To reach the terrible doom, one must 



282 The Power of Habit. 

force his way over mounds and barriers 
that infinite love has reared to stop 
him — I mean, a youth brought up 
under the sweetness and Hght of a 
Christian home and nurture ; 

" And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer," 

perhaps " never to hope again." It 
must be so, for our Hfe itself is but 
an inch or two. 

5. Our habits, once formed, are apt, 
are almost certain, to retnain upon us. 
They cling to us, and hold us as with 
bands of steel. To say of one that he 
has become habituated to an evil way, 
is understood to be much the same as 
saying he will go on in that way to its 
goal and finish. 

The drunkard, for instance : Oh, 
the cords, and chains, and cables bind- 



The Power of Habit. 283 

ing him, body and soul. Will he ever 
free himself ? Marvel if he does. 
Dismantled wreck, and drifting. 
Will-power gone. Would, but cannot. 
That awful curse and thraldom. Better 
to wear iron clamps on every limb of 
his body. Only let the mind be free. 
A human being and rational, made of 
God and for God and glory, but made 
himself a bond-slave to such a demon ! 
Reason with him ? Reason with the 
winds. Expostulate and entreat ? But 
he knows, and feels too, more about it 
than you do or can. Never did wolf 
or tiger hold his victim more re- 
morselessly. In our old school geogra- 
phies was the picture of a horse and 
his rider, struggling and dying within 
the coils of an anaconda. Thus of 
one habit. Much the same in all 



284 The Power of Habit. 

courses of evil and sin — this holding 
and staying property and power. Once 
entered on some evil way, and com- 
mitted to it, and how hard it is to stop 
and turn. Thus of idleness, falsehood, 
profanity, keeping bad company, pro- 
digality, profligacy in every form. 
Once the mounds of virtue swept 
away, and the bitter waters become a 
desolating flood — a Conemaugh horror, 
shocking the world. 

Bear in mind, my friends, this bond- 
age of habit pertains to all sinful 
ways. There is a habit of scepticism 
and unbelief, a habit of cavilling and 
contempt toward religion and its pro- 
fessors, a habit of thoughtlessness, 
prayerlessness, procrastination. " I 
suppose I should attend to the subject 
(religion) were it not for the wretched 



The Power of Habit, 285 

habit upon me of putting off every- 
thinof to the last minute." Such the 
answer not unfrequently given by a 
man when pressed with the gracious 
call. And doesn't the man live on 
and die giving no sign ? Amaz- 
ing thing that a man can so live 
and so die under Gospel light. What 
motives and mighty influences urge 
that man to turn from his way and 
live ! But in despite of all, and in re- 
sistance of all, he presses on in the 
"old way," trodden by the wicked in 
years how many, and in numbers who 
can count ? Runs that way blindly, 
recklessly, madly ; and the end is 
death. Oh, that they were wise, that 
they understood this, that they would 
consider their latter end ! Ah, my 
friends, there is a " bondage of corrup- 



286 The Power of Habit. 

tion " — " a body of this death." " His 
own iniquities shall take the wicked 
himself, and he shall be holden with 
the cords of his sins." 

The text has led me to speak of 
habits which bind to evil. But there 
is a brighter side suggested. Good 
habits : what they are, and what they 
lead to. Wonderful the unanimity in 
men's beliefs and confessions here, 
whatever their own conduct and course 
of life. That wickedest man is human 
still. With choked voice, and with 
tears, he says : " Go, my boy, go to 
that city ; be brave and true, and shun 
the evil. Play the man. Give us joy of 
you." Divine preacher, for once, that 
father, despite his own practice. I 
thank him for his sermon. Astonishing 
thing that a father could be less than 



The Power of Habit. 287 

divine to his child anywhere, in any- 
thing. 

But these good habits : habits of 
temperance, chastity, and that " clean- 
liness " which, you often hear said, " is 
next to godliness ; " habits of industry, 
order, truthfulness and fair dealing ; 
habits of candor, and charity, in judg- 
ing ; habits of self-control, and the soft 
answer which turneth away wrath; 
habits of valiancy for the true and 
right ; the courage to say, No, to all 
askings of wrong ; habit of submit- 
ting questions to second thought, and 
conscience, and the Bible ; habits of 
friendliness, courtesy, gentleness to- 
ward all men ; habit of a pleasant look 
and word to children, wherever you 
meet them — a whole mission in itself, 
and of the best ; habits of keeping 



288 The Power of Habit. 

at home, and improvement of time ; 
habits of observation, of study and re- 
flection ; habits of prayer, and Bible- 
reading, and Sabbath-keeping, and 
sanctuary - attendance. These good 
habits — rich cluster — how they adorn 
the person and life — wisdom, more 
precious than rubies, and than all the 
things thou canst desire. 

And then the little things we may 
be doing to others every day — things 
having the quality of mercy, which is 
twice blessed — " it blesses him that 
gives, and him that takes." 

" If, in our daily course, our mind 
Be set to hallow all we find. 
New treasures still, of countless price, 
God will provide for sacrifice." 

These little blessednesses we may be 



The Power of Habit. 289 

having and giving — giving spontane- 
ously, naturally, as a flower gives per- 
fume, not because it makes an effort, 
but because it is a flower — little things 
as they come to hand — " the next step 
in the path of God before you " : fill 
some young life with sweetness ; 
steady the tottering steps of the old 
man and gray-headed ; send a note of 
cheer to a sick one ; place a flower on 
a craped door-handle ; lend a hand to 
a tired toiler ; take back to your 
neighbor the ox or sheep that is 
going astray ; replace the rail that has 
fallen from his fence ; " speak a word 
in season to him that is weary ; " 
smooth some brow furrowed with 
care ; brush a tear from some sad 
cheek ; kindle a fire on some cold 

hearth ; bring some wanderer back 
19 



290 The Power of Habit. 

and home ; tell that wicked man that 
Christ " loves him notwithstanding 
all," and stands at his door, knocking, 
and waits to come in and sup with 
him ; give a cup of cold water only, if all 
you can — something, any thing, where 
want is, and love can : oh ! to think 
of it — a life thus filled up — " marked 
with some act of goodness every day " 
— " some softening gleam of love and 
prayer." Little things? No! they 
are angelic, divine — of sweet signifi- 
cance, and mighty power — pattern of 
heavenly things — a following of Him, 
the adorable Source and Author, 

" Who gives its lustre to an insect's wing, 

And wheels his throne upon the rolling 
worlds." 

" A whispered word may touch the heart, 
And call it back to life ; 



The Power of Habit. 291 

A look of love bid sin depart, 

And still unholy strife. 
No act falls fruitless ; none can tell 

How great its power may be, 
Nor what results enfolded dwell 

Within it silently." 

In all this I am supposing a case, 
yea, better, I am describing many an 
actual case. A young man, a Chris- 
tian, building himself up in all the vir- 
tues and graces, coming to have, and 
enjoy, and show them as the habit of 
his life, as the character for which he is 
known and honored; and bringing him 
at last to his crown in heaven. Silent 
process, here again ; like footsteps of 
angels, like the flight of time, like 
growth in the trees. He isn't think- 
ing of habits, but of duties — how he 
may please God, and do good to men. 



292 The Power of Habit. 

He doesn't see the growth in him, 
but in no long time finds and feels its 
blessed force and effect — virtue, a 
freedom, a strength, a joy, a life, a 
great salvation. See him give and 
lend — good heart, indeed, but good 
habit also — and thus the charm in 
his alms-deeds — the ease, naturalness, 
spontaneousness. You would not like 
to be told that your friend's gifts to 
you have cost him a struggle : rather 
say of him that the gifts were the easy, 
spontaneous outcome from his good 
nature — his make up and measure — all 
he is and is known for. Suicide means 
an act, or a man doing it. Just so the 
sound, giving the mere name of many 
a man, is instant and inevitable sug- 
gestion of whatsoever is good and 
noble in heart and life. " A good 



The Power of Habit. 293 

name is rather to be chosen than 
great riches." And think of how 
much such a name impHes and stands 
for, of first things, and last, and chief, 
in our present and our forever. Care, 
then, how we build. Or, changing the 
figure : We reap as we sow, in kind 
and in measure. " We sow an act, and 
we reap a habit ; we sow a habit, and 
we reap a character ; we sow a char- 
acter, and we reap a destiny." 

Two ways, and two C7ids, then — sin 
and sinful habits, a bondage ; or piety 
and its habits, a freedom — the liberty 
wherewith Christ maketh free. That 
bad habits do bind and enslave is what 
we all see, is universally confessed. 
Who denies that ? Not one. But, on 
the other hand, there are many, espe- 
cially of the young, to whom religion 



294 The Power of Habit. 

appears little else but hardship, re- 
straint — a gloomy something, to be put 
off, and pushed aside while we dare — to 
be submitted to when we must. Great- 
est of mistakes this, and most calami- 
tous — Satan's master device. Moses 
chooses his lot with God's people — 
prefers it before all the treasures 
in Egypt. Did he ever regret that 
choice, think you ? Mary chooses the 
good part ; did she ever regret it ? So 
of Ruth, and many another. To be 
on the Lord's side, consciously a child 
of his, and have all his yours ; to love 
him, and serve him, in his glorious 
kingdom — to have in you the new 
heart, and the new life — life divine, 
spiritual, mighty, eternal ; to love all 
men, and to be doing them all the good 
you can ; to have faith's victory, and 



The Power of Habit. 295 

hope's anchor, and to know, that when 
this Hfe's inch or two is over, there is 
for you the glory and bhss eternal in 
heaven. Any bondage in this ? Oh, 
no ; it is freedom, liberty, in the high- 
est conception of it — it is joy and 
peace — it is glory and blessedness. 
You all know it is. There isn't in 
this assembly one but says it is, and 
but would act upon it, but for the lie 
in his right, and those whisperings in 
his heart — the great enemy of souls, 
" with all deceivableness of unright- 
eousness " using his arts to deceive and 
destroy. Take, again, this one Scrip- 
ture verse : " The fruit of the spirit is 
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentle- 
ness, goodness, faith, meekness, tem- 
perance : against such there is no law " 
— no law to condemn, nor to enslave — 



296 The Power of Habit. 

nor to restrain you even, except from 
sin which does enslave and degrade. 
" But then," says one, " religion implies 
sacrifices, self-denials, crosses, war- 
fare." Yes ; but think of the glorious 
company with you and for you : God, 
Christ, the Spirit, the church, and 
all good angels — all things yours — a 
mighty array — and heaven at last. 
"To him that overcometh." Is there 
anything nobler than that ? "I have 
fought a good fight ; I have finished 
my course ; I have kept the faith." 
Oh ! to be able to say that ! — to say 
it now, and to say it when all the 
shadows and shows and shams of this 
vain world are gone as a dream — 
and then to add with the Apostle : 
" Henceforth there is laid up for me 
a crown of righteousness, which the 



The Power of Habit. 297 

Lord, the righteous judge, shall give 
me at that day." 

A young man or maiden, planted in 
the garden of the Lord — garden of 
lilies and spices — and nourished there 
by all the blessed agencies and influ- 
ences of God's redeeming love and 
plan ; and soon rooted, built up into 
Christ in all things ; fruitful in every 
good work, strengthened with all 
might, according to God's glorious 
power, unto all patience and long-suf- 
fering with joyfulness." Beautiful 
picture — not mine, but the Bible's. 
" And he shall be like a tree planted 
by the rivers of water, that bringeth 
forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf 
also shall not wither ; and whatsoever 
he doeth shall prosper." Battles — 
perhaps scars — they are honorable 



298 The Power of Habit. 

scars, and victory at last ; labors, and 
then the heavenly rest ; struggles, 
conflicts, but the Delectable Mountains 
in sight ; Jordan, but the sweet fields ; 
the cross borne for a little, and then 
the crown worn forever ; sighs, yet 
singing : 

" All our conflicts end in everlasting rest." 

Gave up the pleasures of sin for a sea- 
son, and gained the pleasures for ever- 
more at God's hand. 

My dear young friends, will you 
not, like Moses, and like Mary, choose 
the good part ? Will you not choose it 
now, to-day, and so receive at last, and 
how soon, the welcame, Well done ! 

" They that be wise shall shine as 
the brightness of the firmament ; and 
they that turn many to righteousness, 
as the stars for ever and ever." 



